No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing • Hacker News Board

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

#751

Post by rayiner » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 6:25 PM UTC

the_solenoid wrote: post #410

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…

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…

Income after taxes and transfer payments has grown for everyone since 1970: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1970-_Relative_incom...

You can make a fair argument that the bottom 50% haven’t gotten their share of productivity growth, but that doesn’t explain why social indicators among the bottom quantile have gotten so much worse.

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

#752

Post by hammock » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 6:27 PM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #738

hammock wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may work for a single generation. And the child soon grows up and meets reality. We are in a situation that has been developing for multiple generations Edit: I agree with the replies and I’m not one for shirking personal responsibility to change your lot in life, nor not instilling an eye for opportunity in children. We are at a point where more may be necessary

Of course we can do more to have a robust economic ladder, but I dont think it is nearly as bleak and binary as people make it out to be. If you look at the actual data, there is still a lot up upward mobility. 60% of people who grow up in the bottom economic quintile improve their situation. [1] When thinking about the 40% that dont, there are a few notable facts: 20% of children in the bottom quintile dont graduate…

I disagree with the headline in that chart. What I see is 60% chance (i.e. more likely than not) of mobility up or down

Edit: you edited your post to be more than just a link

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

#753

Post by fn-mote » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 6:27 PM UTC

dgfitz wrote: post #414

igetspam wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By nature? Really? What are women, by nature? :popcorn:

Lmgtfy which might encourage you to reconsider making flame bait comments that serve no useful purpose. http://journal.sjdm.org/jdm06016.pdf

I loved the idea of this comment, so I read the article.

It says that men are more likely than women to take risks across several domains. This does not support the idea that men (more than women) are "risk assessors by nature".

The article also says that women and men are equally likely to take risks in the social domain... which probably includes marriage.

In general, I think the blithe characterization of men and women in this way does not move the dialogue forward.

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

#754

Post by ibejoeb » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 6:27 PM UTC

ss108 wrote: post #603

ibejoeb wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Absurd to blame the "educated and affluent" for lower-class abandonment of their own cultural values. The author isn't blaming the elite for the trend. In fact, he acknowledges that it has impacted all strata, even though the impact is greater at the lower end. What he's saying is that family stability is no longer a universal value. The thesis is that the elite set the fashion. He writes: "Those who sit at or near…

I'll admit/concede I may have inferred a stronger and more specific conclusion than the one the author actually meant to make. "It's not that the elites are saying, "Start a family and stick with it," and therefor everyone else is acting out in protest; it's that the elites are not saying it." I'm not sure what you mean here, though--like, my point is that elite rungs of society saying "Start a family and stick with…

> my point is that elite rungs of society saying "Start a family and stick with it" is simply going to be irrelevant to a lot of the people the author is talking about. Would you disagree?

No, I don't really disagree with that. If it were just elites shouting down, then you're right. It was the manner in which it used to be conveyed that matters. The mass media is no longer propagating that messaging in the way it had been for past decades. Pop culture celebrated families, especially in the age of television, from the '50s through the '80s. There were some hangers-on in the early '90s, like Family Matters, Full House, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, but it was waning.

The contemporary messaging is very positive about nontraditional lifestyles. The people who control the media are the elite, and the messaging is delivered via pop culture stars.

I don't know which way the influence actually flows, but I think this is what the author is getting at, and it not too far out there if you ask me.

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

#755

Post by rayiner » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

philistine wrote: post #746

rayiner wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

But that’s exactly the point! Prior to the 1960s revolution in social norms, families in poor countries weren’t structured all that differently than ones in the US.

I’m no Reaganite, but the fact is that the stuff the old “family values” conservatives said is pretty much the same thing my Asian immigrant parents told me growing up.

Meanwhile, the data shows that Asian Americans who grow up in the bottom 20% have a 25% chance of ending up in the top 20% as adults. For white kids it’s just 11%. That’s a really big coincidence to hand wave away.

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

#756

Post by rayiner » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 6:31 PM UTC

3np wrote: post #535

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…

One thing that really stuck out to me was the implicit assumption that "stable home environment" requires or is equal to "married couple of biological parents living together until child becomes adult". Especially the quote where an agreement that stability is important was interpreted as agreement that marriage is important.

Virtually everyone in the world aside from a handful of declining European countries believes that “stable home environment” = “married parents.”

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

#757

Post by rayiner » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 6:32 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #747

rayiner wrote: post #709

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What does adjusting for “cultural biases” mean?

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

#758

Post by AviationAtom » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 6:33 PM UTC

AlexandrB wrote: post #638

AviationAtom wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the flipside, most employees don't feel tied to an employer, even if the employer treats them well. Often many folks are chasing higher pay. I know in the cybersecurity realm quite a few folks are job hoppers, and right now employers are all to anxious to try to pick off talent from competitors. One of my former co-workers is now at their fifth job in five years, and each time they were chasing a higher paycheck.…

This didn't happen overnight. When I was in my early teens in the 90s I already had a sense, from listening to the news, that employers were out for their own self-interest first and foremost. Massive layoffs, shrinking benefits, and the concept of public companies being primarily responsible to their shareholders all send the same message: "At the end of the day, you are disposable. Loyalty will not be reciprocated.…

But isn't it doomed to be a self fulfilling prophecy if you approach every new company with these beliefs?

Google is a great example of one that started out very differently, but unfortunately became much like the companies they strived to set themselves apart from. Many startups still foster that culture Google originally had.

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

#759

Post by ohthehugemanate » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 6:34 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #616

photochemsyn wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much of the elite wealthy class and their media sock puppets on both sides of the traditional left/right political divide are dedicated to pushing the identitarian culture war theme - because what they don't want to deal with is something like this: "Creating an economy where men can attain dignity and social respect."

> “Creating an economy where men can attain dignity and social respect." What does that mean? Is everyone going to attend college and become coders? Who is going to collect the trash. In my home country the dominant job opportunity is subsistence farming, people still manage.

The lack of dignity and social respect conferred upon those who perform jobs like trash collection is precisely the cultural ill OP is describing.

One of my favorite parts of living in Germany has been the relative lack of social hierarchy associated with one's job. I'm in a martial arts class with a mix of doctors, lawyers, musicians, carpenters, students, and (actual) garbage collectors, and not once have I noticed a stratification or class connotation in discussion during or after class. They have very different economic means of course, but "dignity and social respect" is exactly the right description for the quality they all grant each other as contributing members of society.

It's a cultural quality I've come to accept as a marker of a functional social democracy.

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

#760

Post by imtringued » Sun, Apr 24, 2022, 6:35 PM UTC

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #124

photochemsyn wrote: post #120

I think there are quite a few alternative explanations for the data cited in the article than the ones the author proposes: > "Today, one in six American men between the ages of 25 and 54 are unemployed or out of the workforce altogether: about 10 million men. This number has more than doubled since the 1970s." We have this place in the USA called "The Rust Belt" which was once a dynamic and active manufacturing cent…

>This resulted in the explosive growth of the quite profitable private prison complex (which did not exist before the 1970s) The government prison complex is orders of magnitude larger. Welfare is how they keep the poors from rocking the boat. Government jobs is the same tranquilizer but for people slightly better off. Edit: fine, maybe it's only one order of magnitude bigger.

Honestly, what if full time jobs (40 hour work weeks) are just a form of day care for men? Someone who worked "hard" all day and is the bread winner has way more leeway to get away with more anti social behavior than someone who is at home all day and doing the same thing.

The politics of endless growth are actually just a way to keep people busy. No wonder depressions and their massive loss of jobs lead to so much instability.