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No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

robkhenderson.substack.com

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Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#741

Post by fiftyfifty »

d23 wrote: post #44

Do people find this stuff compelling? Rank speculation and confident assertion with minimal substantive backing? I’d find this statement equally compelling (which is to say, not at all): > Since we stopped using horses as a primary means of transportation, men’s sense of self worth has diminished. Riding a horse carried a lot of high status connotations: drive, masculinity, towering above the land, and man’s dominati…

I don't think it's rank speculation, the article itself mentions 1 in 6 men are unemployed, and there have been plenty of other articles that have been posted on here with statistics on the number of men that aren't just unemployed but have no interest being employed. College enrollment of men is somewhere around 44% of the student body nation wide in the US, the number of men in higher education has been dropping for a couple of decades now. Girls are significantly outperforming boys from Kindergarten to 12 grade nearly everywhere. This stuff has been posted on here and discussed many times.

There was another article posted on here before similar to this one and I posted my thoughts on the trend from the perspective of coaching high school girls and boys sports: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30274979&p=4#30276972

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#742

Post by giantg2 »

fzeroracer wrote: post #688
VLM wrote: post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just look at the lack of non-college work in the US that pays a living wage. A problem that doesn't exist. Plenty of that work out there. Try to get a custom 3-phase power line run in the datacenter. Average age of electricians is about 55 around here. Nobody goes into the trades because the trades will "destroy your body before you're 35" yet all the thin healthy tradesmen around here are mid-50s boomers. Hmm. The…

> Nobody goes into the trades because the trades will "destroy your body before you're 35" yet all the thin healthy tradesmen around here are mid-50s boomers. I just wanted to point out that this is quite literally textbook survivorship bias. Instead of looking around and talking to the people that made it that far, you should try talking to those that didn't.

To be fair, I feel that the sedentary lifestyle of being a dev is just as damaging. Heart surgery vs joint replacement basically.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#743

Post by dotnet00 »

e2le wrote: post #440
Aunche wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO outrage about incels is just a socially acceptable way to bully. It's a way to find an excuse to express their superiority over others while masquerading it with concern over women's safety. You're never going to see someone mock a successful man who beats his wife.

It's confusing to me that it's socially acceptable these days to bully those who lack a sexual partner.

At least initially, when people used to make fun of incels, it was specifically in reference to "the government MUST find me a girlfriend" types, but it seems it's frequently 'genericized' to people who don't have a sexual partner, regardless of if they're even interested in it in the first place.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#744

Post by danans »

rayiner wrote: post #702
the_solenoid wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree - and will take it one step further: he misses the root causes of "instability", and I bet it tracks directly with the gutting of the middle class starting in the 70's, and/or the same flat-lining of wages (not keeping up with inflation etc) despite huge increases in productivity in about the same time period. Money is a huge stressor in relationships. Misogyny is still a huge thing (to my utter surprise hone…

How does a “flat lining” of wages of cause family stability to go down ? And how do you explain high levels of family stability in countries that are much poorer?

> And how do you explain high levels of family stability in countries that are much poorer?

Less individual freedom, greater direct economic dependency on others in your group, and also the threat of ostracization, excommunication, and destitution if you go against its rules. Basically, there are extremely high cost/stakes associated with going it on your own.

But on the other side there are also good things that come from greater direct interdependency, like perhaps less individual alienation and a greater sense of shared purpose, and access to community resources when you follow the prescribed rules.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#745

Post by zelphirkalt »

jcstk wrote: post #132

I can appreciate this perspective because I used to have it. I even wrote a similar blog post 10 years ago - it was on the top of HN and the comment section was a beautiful shitshow. For me, this perspective was a good story to tell myself - it justified why I was only investing my time in “work”, and validated me for having “come so far”. Over time, I have reflected and shifted this perspective. That reflection cent…

Hm. What about other things though, which are not the job, but still require effort/work? Like working on free software, working for a social project, being politically active, doing things of charity reasons ... Those don't require one to define oneself in terms of how far one has gotten in their career, but they actually add value to society. In many cases adding more value to society than the actual job. I think it's quite OK to define ones worth using such measures. We all live in a society. People should ask themselves more often how much they contributed to the well-being of society.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#746

Post by philistine »

rayiner wrote: post #702
the_solenoid wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree - and will take it one step further: he misses the root causes of "instability", and I bet it tracks directly with the gutting of the middle class starting in the 70's, and/or the same flat-lining of wages (not keeping up with inflation etc) despite huge increases in productivity in about the same time period. Money is a huge stressor in relationships. Misogyny is still a huge thing (to my utter surprise hone…

How does a “flat lining” of wages of cause family stability to go down ? And how do you explain high levels of family stability in countries that are much poorer?

I think you're trying to think that stable families become less stable if their waged stagnate. They don't. What happens is that in aggregate, with stagnating wages, there are less stable (middle-class) families in society.

For so-called poorer countries, they are differently structured. It's tough to compare their family units with our rich nations.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#747

Post by giantg2 »

rayiner wrote: post #709
giantg2 wrote: post #203

Wow, lots of controversial things in here. "You put a guy in chaotic and impoverished circumstances. And then you decide not to expect anything out of him. How can anyone possibly believe this will lead to anything other than disaster?" I think the author has neglected a hugely important factor in this. Sure, what others expect of you can influence you greatly. But what one expects for themselves is a huge factor too…

What are real wages like in lower middle class America compared to Asian or African countries that have a fraction of the rate of kids being raised without both parents?

That would be interesting to see. Maybe you can show us the numbers, adjust for COL, adjust for definition of success, adjust for academic differences, and adjust for cultural biases.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#748

Post by [deleted] »

jcstk wrote: post #132

I can appreciate this perspective because I used to have it. I even wrote a similar blog post 10 years ago - it was on the top of HN and the comment section was a beautiful shitshow. For me, this perspective was a good story to tell myself - it justified why I was only investing my time in “work”, and validated me for having “come so far”. Over time, I have reflected and shifted this perspective. That reflection cent…

[deleted]

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#749

Post by zozbot234 »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #745
jcstk wrote: post #132

I can appreciate this perspective because I used to have it. I even wrote a similar blog post 10 years ago - it was on the top of HN and the comment section was a beautiful shitshow. For me, this perspective was a good story to tell myself - it justified why I was only investing my time in “work”, and validated me for having “come so far”. Over time, I have reflected and shifted this perspective. That reflection cent…

Hm. What about other things though, which are not the job, but still require effort/work? Like working on free software, working for a social project, being politically active, doing things of charity reasons ... Those don't require one to define oneself in terms of how far one has gotten in their career, but they actually add value to society. In many cases adding more value to society than the actual job. I think i…

Volunteering tends to be an elite activity anyway. When people have to work multiple full-time jobs just to survive, it's just not very helpful or meaningful to ask whether they might find their inner fulfillment by helping out at the local animal shelter.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#750

Post by zo1 »

clearleaf wrote: post #694
zo1 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a certain class of very smart, articulate and well-thinking people. They are very good at arguing and dismissing and coming up with all sorts of valid reasons for all sorts of ideas. I find they detract the conversation a lot, instead of adding substance. I refer to the nebulous group of them as the "Intelligentsia", borrowed from others though.

They're never here to give a voice to people who don't have one, or to make us look at the material in any different way besides complete dismissal. You call them Intelligensia but I call them people who suck all the oxygen out of the room.

Oh I didn't mean the term to be a compliment in any way. They're the kind of people that bludgeon normal people's debates and arguments with their breadth of knowledge, memory, intelligence and sheer typing capacity.
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