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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

#561

Post by api »

astrange wrote: post #402
api wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 20 trillion in debt for illegal and stupid wars That's really the elephant in the living room. Perhaps as a society we are poorer because we set fire to trillions in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. For the HN crowd here's a metric: the average seed round is like $2M these days, so Iraq at roughly $3 trillion would be enough to fund 1.5 million startup companies.

Increasing the national debt doesn’t decrease private savings, it increases them. The nation is not a household.

The problem isn’t the debt. The problem is the waste. All the personnel and capital used on those wars was personnel and capital not being invested productively. It was wealth pulled out of the economy and burned, which makes us all poorer.

Money is just accounting. The real economy is physical.

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

#562

Post by grvdrm »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #535
_bkr9 wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "Cha…

If you look at male-oriented fitness subcultures, they’re almost never motivated by sexual attractiveness. The idea of “lifting for women” is typically a taboo that will get you ridiculed in most communities. The ideals of these communities typically revolve around some model of self-improvement, and if the participants are pursuing any type of social status, it’s typically in the form of praise from other men.

100%. I am an avid lifter (not competitive) and love the camaraderie that inevitably pops up at the gym, and elsewhere. I like those comments from the trainer! I like exchanging videos with friends and praising and giving feedback. Now friends with a neighbor of mine almost entirely because I told him that his Crossfit-like home gym looked awesome the second time we met.

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

#563

Post by clutchdude »

jdminhbg wrote: post #466
clutchdude wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Total hours worked in the US has DOUBLED since then. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/B4701C0A222NBEA And more work is done part-time(usually by those are unable to work full time jobs) https://alfred.stlouisfed.org/series?seid=B4701C0A222NBEA&ut...

> Total hours worked in the US has DOUBLED since then. That chart is not adjusted for population.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LFWA64TTUSM647S

Working population since 1977

We have have roughly 50% working age population(136mil vs 205mil)

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/B4701C0A222NBEA

Hours worked is 65% more since 1977(155 257)

Or, we're working 15% more per eligible person.

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

#564

Post by BLKNSLVR »

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.

Continuing to believe that may be what's holding you back. There are less- and un-attractive females that are looking for a partner as well. The "bar being too high" works in both directions.

Also, in regards to longer-term relationships, if this is true:

> You have to be attractive for girls to swipe right on you and start a conversation in the first place.

Then they're probably not the right ones to be starting a conversation with.

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

#565

Post by cperciva »

Spivak wrote: post #502
cperciva wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between "toxic masculinity" and "asynchronous functions". Asynchronous functions are still functions, but there's nothing masculine about "toxic masculinity".

Toxic masculinity is literally masculine behaviors that end up harming the doer or the people around them — that’s why it’s called toxic. If you think it’s too politically charged then unhealthy masculinity is fine too. Toxic masculinity is not solely men’s fault. It’s a systematic issue that is perpetuated by everyone. Unhealthy independence is a good example. From the individual it’s “I don’t need anyone”, refusing…

The idea that men always want sex is routinely described as "toxic masculinity".

Tell me, when I was sexually assaulted by a woman who told me that I should want what she was doing and there was something wrong with me if I didn't, who was being masculine?

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

#566

Post by beefman »

redisman wrote: post #317
lph wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order." -FDR

The thing is - we’re at 4% unemployment. Which is probably about as low as a service based economy can get.

Presently in the U.S. about 60% of people have jobs; 55% of women and 65% of men. In Feb 1962, 56% had jobs but it was 36% of women and 78% of men

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

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300002

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12300001

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

#567

Post by sokoloff »

betwixthewires wrote: post #380
tharne wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is spot on. Multigenerational housing used to be the norm, not a symbol of failure. Why we all think it's a great idea to leave our families at 18 and pay high rents so that we can live with strangers we found on the internet is beyond me.

The thing is, the people that do the systems planning of our economy and social structure have an incentive for every man to move into a productive lifestyle the minute he turns 18. But there's a misalignment of incentives; what appears productive for society is not productive for the young men in question. So of course, in print, there's a crisis of young men staying at home with their parents til they're 30. But fo…

Much of our life’s joy comes from what amounts to “meaningless hedonistic interactions”. It’s not that surprising that after having a taste of that in college or early adulthood that people sign up for that trade. I did, and I’d do it again.

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

#568

Post by urthor »

twofornone wrote: post #385
urthor wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a huge body of education research about this, this has been the case for of years. There's even data from the pre-1900s, especially in the primary school years. Only recently have we stripped away a lot of the sexism however, providing a successful transition to higher education. It all boils down to: Girls are more likely to do their damn homework when the teacher tells them. Therefore they out-perform in fo…

>Only recently have we stripped away a lot of the sexism however, providing a successful transition to higher education. Is it really so difficult to consider that career preferences are gendered? That millions of years of sexually dimorphic specialization could lead to statistically significant differences in interests, abilities, and desired life outcomes? The recent popularity of blaming any disparity on {$x}ism r…

For one thing, I wasn't really addressing career preferences.

Matriculating to higher education isn't really preferring one career over another, other than white collar blue collar. But with absolute surety women are going to college.

I feel like you've got multiple different hypotheses in your comment, so I'll address the big one at the start.

> Is it really so difficult to consider that career preferences are gendered? That millions of years of sexually dimorphic specialization could lead to statistically significant differences in interests, abilities, and desired life outcomes?

Consider that 60% of college students are female now, and 0% were a hundred years ago.

I strongly feel like there's very little innate attraction to "traditional" gender roles amongst women.

If you look at the trajectory of change, it's very clear that every single decade, the change in women's choices marches in a particular direction. Decade on decade, the numbers all point one way.

Which makes me think that women themselves feel traditional gender roles are very unattractive. If there was some sort statistically significant difference, clearly it's not changing the direction of the trend, much if at all.

And change is basically percolating its way through society, slowly but surely.

------------------------------------------------

Given the above:

If women's preferences were genetically or otherwise innately determined, why have they gone for such an enormous, dramatic change in their lifestyles and social situation in the last 50 years? Because women have chosen that for themselves.

My deeply held assumption, is that all our "assumptions" about "what women want" are just that, assumptions.

If you think from a perspective of geological time, the 50 years since the 1960s are nothing. That's 1 generation or less. And yet the lot of women in society has changed dramatically, and they seem to be happy about it.

Given how much change we've had, I think it's fair to say that the attitudes of 100 years ago were not genetically or innately constructed.

I assume pretty much everything in society is just a giant social construct.

Very, very little sexual dimorphism between girls and boys is down to nature.

It's 100% to nurture, not nature.

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

#569

Post by amanaplanacanal »

AdrianB1 wrote: post #515
wolverine876 wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you get to say what someone's purpose is? Why is being a provider necessarily the purpose in life? People might have done it before (I'm dubious of sweeping, golden-age claims like that), but for almost all of human history we lived short, brutal, illiterate lives as hunter-gatherers. I don't feel that is necessarily my purpose in life. Find a meaning that is important to you; be a provider if you like. IMHO,…

> Why do you get to say what someone's purpose is? Why is being a provider necessarily the purpose in life? Because this was the case for the last 10,000 years and you cannot change it overnight, unless you are in Soviet Russia and send people to Gulag for re-education. It is built into men's biological nature to be provider (like most mammals in the nature), you cannot change it because society decided less than a g…

> It is built into men's biological nature to be provider (like most mammals in the nature)

I'd say there is a giant citation needed on that one.

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

#570

Post by rayiner »

zozbot234 wrote: post #559
lostcolony wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Gender roles are driven by more than just religion or tradition. It's not clear that they're good for society (if anything, open societies which don't coercively enforce these norms tend to be more creative and innovative) but what they are is good enough for the many, many people, including women (might even be a majority) who prefer them. Any ideal of freedom of choice for all genders should absolutely include thes…

I suspect it’s a coupled system—tradition and religion both shape and reflect preferences. I think it’s bad for society when women have gender roles forced on them. But I think it’s also possible—especially for the self-selecting group of highly educated people who tend to think and write about these issues—to overlook how many women would simply rather take care of their kids, at least while they’re young, compared to the work they’re qualified to do.
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