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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

#541

Post by [deleted] »

mrjangles wrote: post #474
awaythrow483 wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 33, Ive got a fairly high IQ, make $340k in a STEM field and enough to retire tomorrow, I'm not unattractive, and put a huge amount of effort over many years into online dating. I've pretty much given up on dating. I have a total inability to find anyone I'm interested in that is interested in me. When I was younger and I wanted to go to bars and get drunk and be an idiot I had plenty of attractive sexual partner…

>huge amount of effort over many years into online dating My god I hope you aren't talking about tinder are you? You are totally clueless about women and dating if that is what you are talking about. Go out to bars, talk to people, do activities and meet lots of people. stop doing 'online' dating (of any kind) Seriously, myself and everyone I know found that upon reaching 33 the interest from women in their 20s sky r…

[deleted]

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

#542

Post by lariati »

mdorazio wrote: post #510
lariati wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are generalizing your stable situation and values far too much. The population stats are something like 60% of men will be fathers but 90-95% of women will be mothers. Most women who can reproduce will but a huge percent of men who can will not. 40% of births are outside of marriage in the US. I would think the only real generalization that can be made is that an introverted guy with money is more likely to get m…

Not sure what stats you're looking at. In the US it's about 80% of women [1] and 60% of men [2]. More interesting to me is the overall downward trend in fertility rates. [1] https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-rise-of-childless-america [2] https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2019/mens-fer...

I think I am confusing % fertile women vs all men. I think it says about 10% of women are infertile.

One thing to keep in mind with those long term fertility rates is that child mortality rates going back that far is just shocking

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041693/united-states-al...

It is too harsh to even think about really.

It is hard also to understand the rise in fertility rates from the 80s to 2010s.

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

#543

Post by fleddr »

dang wrote: post #14

Here's the full Orwell quote. People are wrong when they think that an unemployed man only worries about losing his wages; on the contrary, an illiterate man, with the work habit in his bones, needs work even more than he needs money. An educated man can put up with enforced idleness, which is one of the worst evils of poverty. But a man like Paddy, with no means of filling up time, is as miserable out of work as a d…

How this translates into the real world:

Here in Europe, in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, a large amount of men were fired from their construction job.

I'm talking about incredibly tough and hardened men. The type doing this job for decades, getting up at 5AM each day, working in the bitter cold, never calling in sick, breaking their body and taking pride in it.

Just like that, society suddenly declared these men to be zeroes. They have to call to this unemployment agency, where they're treated as if beginners, and with distrust, as if they're leeches. They have to go to the red tap, none of which they understand.

Reportedly, many of these men broke down and cried on the phone. They probably hadn't cried in decades.

It just shows how absolutely devastating it is when such a man loses purpose. It breaks them. They take pride in their strength, their sacrifice to provide. They cannot be idle nor can they be in a dependent position. It's not them.

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

#544

Post by ksec »

skinkestek wrote: post #176
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…

> Whatever the cause I fully reject the lazy conclusion this is somehow women's fault. Of course! The problem is not women! The problem is media, schools, companies, everyone buying into this in a collective delusion. Men also think this, but unlike women we are even encouraged to strengthen these insane ideas that we are somehow inferior (gets imprisoned more often, less academic success despite supposedly being ext…

>The problem is media, schools, companies.

I can only upvote. My comment is probably not very good for HN.

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

#545

Post by frontman1988 »

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…

200 years(maybe even 30-40 years) from now the process of creating babies will probably not be the biological one that it is now. Artificial wombs and genetically selected babies would probably be the norm. You select the traits of the baby you want, share your dna, fill some forms and boom your baby is ready to be installed and delivered in 9 months.

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

#546

Post by bradlys »

mrjangles wrote: post #474
awaythrow483 wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 33, Ive got a fairly high IQ, make $340k in a STEM field and enough to retire tomorrow, I'm not unattractive, and put a huge amount of effort over many years into online dating. I've pretty much given up on dating. I have a total inability to find anyone I'm interested in that is interested in me. When I was younger and I wanted to go to bars and get drunk and be an idiot I had plenty of attractive sexual partner…

>huge amount of effort over many years into online dating My god I hope you aren't talking about tinder are you? You are totally clueless about women and dating if that is what you are talking about. Go out to bars, talk to people, do activities and meet lots of people. stop doing 'online' dating (of any kind) Seriously, myself and everyone I know found that upon reaching 33 the interest from women in their 20s sky r…

> Seriously, myself and everyone I know found that upon reaching 33 the interest from women in their 20s sky rockets. You are definitely doing something wrong, not society.

Huge YMMV. A lot of us are physically similar to what we were in our 20s but I definitely peaked when I was around 25. It’s been a steady downhill trend since then and the interest from women has gone completely downhill. Mind you - I’m not exactly surrounded by many women I’m interested in but at least in the past I might’ve had someone I wasn’t into express some mild interest in me.

In my 30s though? Nope. Definitely not. Haven’t even lost hair or gained a bunch of fat. Yet - from the results one would think I have.

So, I’d say… grain of salt as far as your experience and your friends goes. I know many men who have basically given up in their 30s because they feel completely undesired and have managed to keep up their physicality.

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

#547

Post by lemmsjid »

tonguez wrote: post #512

“ Not just coincidentally, “deaths of despair” — those caused by suicide, overdose and alcoholism — have surged to unprecedented levels among middle-aged men over the past 20 years.” The vast majority of those suicides are coming from a specific “ethnic category”. But if you say which one, it makes you a domestic terrorist. What is the motivation to live in a world where you’re not even allowed to talk about what’s h…

It isn't domestic terrorism to discuss suicide rates by gender, age, sexuality, etc. Here's a breakdown from the CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/suicide/rates_1999_2017...

The categories with the highest suicide rates are "Non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native" followed by "Non Hispanic White". The highest rate of increase is in that first category.

If this elder abuse at the hand of brainwashed nursing home workers is so certain, then where is the correlating data? Here's a study that attempted to find racial disparities in elder abuse and found little disparity https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3694735/. It cites several previous studies.

The national conversation about race can indeed be very frustrating to encounter, but you're taking an incredibly one sided and defeatist stance on the whole thing.

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

#548

Post by indigochill »

adriand wrote: post #441
skinkestek wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whatever the cause I fully reject the lazy conclusion this is somehow women's fault. Of course! The problem is not women! The problem is media, schools, companies, everyone buying into this in a collective delusion. Men also think this, but unlike women we are even encouraged to strengthen these insane ideas that we are somehow inferior (gets imprisoned more often, less academic success despite supposedly being ext…

Right. It’s our fault, that is, men’s. We live in a society in which we we have disproportionately had the power. And this is the result. But I don’t think it’s really a gender thing, I think it’s a power and money thing. That is, I don’t think mainly white, rich and powerful men set out to disadvantage other men. I think they were more focused on advantaging themselves to the exclusion of everyone else. What I find…

> Why are women succeeding despite that?

Might have something to do with women (speaking very broadly) being more social than men. Social connection provide a framework for cooperation and competition, without which some men drift aimlessly.

This is just an off-the-cuff hypothesis, though, not researched in any way (at least by me).

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

#549

Post by chrisseaton »

symlinkk wrote: post #538
eropple wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think that. I genuinely did. I thought that the bar was all the way up in space and that it’s impossible to reach it. I was pretty lonely. Of course, I used to also think that my value was in my net worth and you could have seen all the way from space the “I’m an asshole and I don’t know why nobody will date me” vibes radiating off of me. Then I grew up, I chilled out, and I put conscious effort into things…

> listening, and exercising my capacity for empathy, and trying to be pleasant to be around None of that matters if you aren’t attractive. You have to be attractive for girls to swipe right on you and start a conversation in the first place.

> You have to be attractive

Again, looking in any maternity ward at the fathers you'll see many conventionally unattractive men.

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

#550

Post by rdtwo »

symlinkk wrote: post #538
eropple wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to think that. I genuinely did. I thought that the bar was all the way up in space and that it’s impossible to reach it. I was pretty lonely. Of course, I used to also think that my value was in my net worth and you could have seen all the way from space the “I’m an asshole and I don’t know why nobody will date me” vibes radiating off of me. Then I grew up, I chilled out, and I put conscious effort into things…

> listening, and exercising my capacity for empathy, and trying to be pleasant to be around None of that matters if you aren’t attractive. You have to be attractive for girls to swipe right on you and start a conversation in the first place.

It’s actually not that bad if you get out from behind the keyboard and practice. But it’s work and it could take a few years off practice 2-3 times a week.
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