Live data from Hacker News

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

robkhenderson.substack.com

771–780 of 1001 posts

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

#772
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…

>But, to be clear, those expectations are coming from the author. That’s his perspective of what the world thinks, based on his interactions, based on what he chooses to read, listen to, etc. He's not describing anyone but himself.

The last conclusion is a little off. Everybody who expresses any opinion is describing "his perspective of what the world thinks, based on his interactions, based on what he chooses to read, listen to, etc". That doesn't mean they can't also coincide with a general trend, for example "societal expectations" at large.

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

#773
post #731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you could share this evidence instead of sharing an anonymous assertion

They basically said stable relationships are more stable than unstable relationships and you want evidence?

Stable relationships are possible without marriage. Some people view these as synonyms and others see that as a clear mistake.

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

#774
I wonder did the destruction of unions and the export of jobs have anything to do with it? Also the destruction of mom ‘n pop retail. What about TV and the internet, destroying in person social interaction? What about the large scale jailing of black youth, for non violent crimes, three strikes and all that? I dunno about any of this, but the article is just recycling old right wing tropes.

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

#775

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…

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.

>Income after taxes and transfer payments has grown for everyone since 1970

And education, housing, and health costs has sky-rocketed, number of "essential services" to pay for (mobile phone, internet, severan "rentier" subscriptions) has increased, while job stability and availability for working and middle class has plummeted...

But yes, the top 10%, the types to usually post at HN, never had it better.

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

#776

> A common answer from the chattering class is money. The conventional view is that a lack of money leads to out-of-wedlock births. > But broken homes are a fairly recent phenomenon. I don't get why the author dismisses income, and especially income inequality, so quickly. Since the 1960s the income gap between the affluent and the working class has grown a lot. The quality of "working class" jobs has also declined.…

The 1960s USA is the exception rather than the norm, and thus is not a good point of comparison. It's a peak of the very peculiar post-WW2 global economy where most other industrial countries had their economies destroyed and this gave the USA middle class a unique privileged opportunity enabling conditions that weren't possible almost anywhere else, weren't possible for USA before, and most likely won't be possible for USA or anyone else ever again.

Working conditions becoming unlike USA 1960s are an inevitable regression back to the norm as the rest of the world recovered after WW2. Look at the conditions of USA 1920s-1930s (or perhaps UK 1960s, or all of the non-Western countries today) for comparison instead; the society has to function well in these working conditions (which are quite ordinary in both historical and current global context) instead of hoping that a return to the 1960s-USA model (which simply won't happen) would fix the problems.

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

#777
And good for them- if they are happy with that. If young men do what they like, I'm happy with that. If young women do same, I'm equally happy. Why should anyone expect anything from someone else? I expect things only from myself.

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

#779
post #440
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.

It's the modern "virgin" insult but worse because they are supposedly virgins who have been rejected by a lot of girls. They aren't virgins for a lack of trying.

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

#780

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN