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The data are clear: The boys are not all right

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

#681

Post by xgulfie »

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…

absolutely wild to infer that fat people won't have kids because nobody could find them attractive

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

#682

Post by rayiner »

nautilius wrote: post #580
rayiner wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Note that 'cultural legacy' is completely different from 'organized religion'. Celebrating 'Christmas' as a family get-together is completely different from celebrating the arrival of the messiah and deriving your complete moral compass from that.

I think cultural legacy is more deeply intertwined with morals than people appreciate. It’s just hard to see it because you’re surrounded by it.

It’s easier to notice when you compare between countries and across religious traditions. My dad was raised very religious (Muslim) in Bangladesh. His grandfather was an imam. He is non-religious and I grew up non-religious, but I joined a Christian church after I got married. From that vantage point I was able to see how much of what I thought was secular American culture could be traced back to Christianity.

Consider, for example, the obsession in Christian countries with equality. They almost fall over themselves to welcome people from different ethnic backgrounds. I suspect this has something to do with Christianity’s origins as a Jewish religion adopted by the Gentiles. I mean, how many societies have a religion centered around some other ethnic group?

There’s so many aspects of society and culture that are the product of history, and of course history is deeply intertwined with religion. My atheist friend, who is white, was telling me how much she hated her uncle for being racist against Muslims. I pointed out to her that was an extremely Christian thing to say! https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2010&ve...

> Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

By contrast, Islam is a religion that arose in Arab society, where kinship ties mean everything. In my home country, putting people you don’t even know over kin, based on some abstract notion of justice, would be unthinkable. It actually made me a little uncomfortable to think that people like me had caused strife within her family.

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

#683

Post by boppo1 »

ksec wrote: post #544
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…

>The problem is media, schools, companies. I can only upvote. My comment is probably not very good for HN.

How so?

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

#684

Post by galangalalgol »

nautilius wrote: post #622
hypertele-Xii wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not completely different, the messianic morals are embedded in the ceremony by design: Sharing, caring, family, food, etc. These aren't incidental, they're the whole point. Sure the specific historical person, i.e. the messiah, blurs over time, as probably do the ceremonial activities, but surely they retain some of the original moral ideals.

You prove my point. You won't find many atheists (if any) that will take Jesus as in any shape or form a historical person. These are two different worlds. Atheists don't derive their morals from these stories, that's the difference. That there is some superficial overlap (a tree? presents?) doesn't allow you to claim the morality of atheists as religion-derived. That's ludicrous. It's like saying the local butcher t…

I'd still suggest the overlap isn't incidental. Religions need stable or expanding societies to procreate. So ideology that leads to stable or expanding societies is strongly selected for. Religions with written texts have surprisingly low mutation rates in their ideology, but when conditions begin to favor different behaviors to promote stability, polygamy for instance, the ideology changes quickly.

As a reference to my biases, I'm a theistic agnost, I don't know, but I believe. The life of pie or secondhand lions explain the why pretty well.

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

#685

Post by zdbrandon »

stickfigure wrote: post #665
thematrixturtle wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you misspelled changing diapers, doing laundry three times a day, spoon-feeding broccoli puree, scraping dried broccoli off the floor, shopping while trying to contain a squealing octopus, etc.

It's... really not that bad? Actually, it's pretty fun. I work from home, wife doesn't, that makes me the defacto stay-at-home dad. It's definitely playing the startup game in "hard mode" but I love not missing a thing.

Also work from home and 100% disagree. Can hardly get anything done with a 4 month old.

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

#686

Post by Gigachad »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #581
symlinkk wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The selection process is on Tinder, not the maternity ward, and the bar is brutally high there for men.

> The selection process is on Tinder, not the maternity ward, and the bar is brutally high there for men. I’ve been seeing this exact trope repeated more and more on HN lately: Some vague assertion that Tinder is the only place for matchmaking and that only a tiny number of men are getting all of the matches. It’s an objectively ridiculous claim for anyone who has experience in the real world where, yes, even “normal…

>So what is actually going on here?

It actually matches the real data and studies which have been done on the topic. When men ranked photos of women on a scale of 1-10, the majority of woman were ranked in the 5 category which would indicate the average person is seen as average. While when woman ranked photos of men, the majority of men were ranked bellow 5. The data that has come out of online dating is pretty damning and says a lot more than some anecdotes about some normal men finding partners.

I wish I remembered the exact study from a few years ago because there are more details which were even more depressing but I'm less certain on.

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

#687

Post by da39a3ee »

epolanski wrote: post #601
symlinkk wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The selection process is on Tinder, not the maternity ward, and the bar is brutally high there for men.

Tinder isn't for relationships, it's a disgusting people market for hook ups. Every profile is basically an ad for a person. Online dating is toxic, most people I know that used it years ago are still there safe for few unicorns. How could it possibly be? Weren't they lookimg for someone? Maybe because it distorts relationships and people as commodities thus making meaningful relationships harder to initiate, maintai…

> Online dating is toxic

Most serious relationships and marriages that I known of (including mine) that started within the last 7 years or so originate in online dating. I'm in my 40s. You might want to be a little less sure of your opinions.

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

#688

Post by boppo1 »

fuzzer37 wrote: post #444
wolverine876 wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is so bad? IME, you can easily ignore all the fatalism (popular to feel on every topic) - pretend it isn't there - and do what you want.

An economy that increasingly gets worse and worse for newer generations? The destruction of the planet? The decline of Western Democracy? I guess if you bury your head in the sand and never pay attention to anything then I guess it's not that bad.

> The decline of Western Democracy?

Do you mean for white people? Last I checked, no one else's interests were ever substantially represented until very recently. And it still needs a lot of work.

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

#689

Post by adriand »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #520
_ktx2 wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I find gender blaming conversation to be reductive. The decline of men and boys is not men's fault nor is it women's fault. Dare I say there's little data to show either way, nor is it really helpful in healing from a dysfunctional society that has failed you on a systemic and in…

Women as an "interest group" have been incredible at PR this last century. Men, on the other hand, have yet to realize that they can't coast on the existing historic momentum and have to start speaking up. It doesn't help that folks who attempt to represent men's rights are instantly smeared as either pathetic incel losers, or as alt-right oppressor misogynists. There's no in-between that I'm aware of. From what I ca…

Feminism isn’t about putting women ahead of men though. It’s about creating equity. Feminism is needed because of the ongoing power imbalance between the sexes. There are still very few arenas in which men do not enjoy the advantage.

The men’s rights stuff is toxic because it’s about conflict. It’s about pushing back against feminism, which is essentially fighting against equity. With that said, I see nothing wrong with fighting for the interests of boys and men. I, too, want to see boys succeed (I have a son!) But it’s not about his rights. It’s about his opportunities and the support and so on, that he gets.

It isn’t feminism that is holding boys and men back, it’s that we live in an inequitable society. That makes feminists allies, not enemies.

I agree with your parent commenter, kodah, that gender blaming is reductive. I recognize that the way I phrased my views could have been better: perhaps a more constructive way of putting it is to say that the present situation is one that men have both the responsibility to improve, and the power to do so.

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

#690

Post by atq2119 »

lovecg wrote: post #678
nautilius wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You prove my point. You won't find many atheists (if any) that will take Jesus as in any shape or form a historical person. These are two different worlds. Atheists don't derive their morals from these stories, that's the difference. That there is some superficial overlap (a tree? presents?) doesn't allow you to claim the morality of atheists as religion-derived. That's ludicrous. It's like saying the local butcher t…

> In fact, the source of morals among atheists seems to be a permanent puzzle for many people with religious background, simply claiming them as religion-based misses the point completely. I don’t have a religious background and it’s still a puzzle for me. Best I can manage to explain it is through a combination of tradition and genes (“human nature”), and tradition is often indeed derived from historical religious e…

Amusingly, there's the same trap here as with the "who created the world" problem.

Sure, religious people get their morals largely from their religion. But where do the morals of the religion come from?

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