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Men Without Work (2016)

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Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#251

Post by luckylion »

lazide wrote: post #236
luckylion wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm pretty sure society is not obligated to have an interest in you It somewhat stops being a society if it says to some members "whether you live or die is irrelevant to me, I will not care either way". That's what some people experience at least some of the time. There's a social contract. Is it still binding you if society doesn't hold up its end?

If society feels like it wants it to, it’s hard to evade the various means of enforcement society has created and funded for the purpose.

That's true, and I don't think society will say "we've let you down but in return you don't owe taxes". I meant to ask more about the ethics. Should you feel obligated to uphold your end if the other side does not?

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#252

Post by yamtaddle »

jimmaswell wrote: post #98
blahblah1234567 wrote: post #53

I think "Men Without Work" is a euphemism. The problem is: - Men without Skills in-demand-- skills which are at least somewhat fulfilling & interesting to those men. Solution: Research labor data for careers in high demand, then cross reference those careers with skills a person is interested in. Then identify resources & a roadmap for learning those skills. And sit down, and put the time in to learn & apply those sk…

> Their problem is that they refuse to put together a well formatted resume, apply to jobs, and accept that they may have to start at the bottom of the career ladder. I see this a lot. Younger people who have been led to believe by incendiary reddit and twitter rants that everyone lived like some Leave it to Beaver sitcom in the near past and they should be able to own a house and support a family at 19 on a McDonald…

My high-school-diploma, literally raised in a barn, divorced-with-child-support-plus-another-kid-out-of-wedlock dad, who piddled around at odd jobs making almost nothing in his 20s before finally getting job at the railroad and working up to middle management, retired early as a millionaire, having paid my way through college (a cheap one, but still). My mom had a junior college degree and only worked like 6 years, before they got married, so they were single-income, too. We went on a nice couple-weeks-long road trip every year and traveled to see family around holidays. They could afford to drop a stupid amount of money on a Tandy for me when I was really young, in case the whole computer thing took off. We did great.

It really, really was different for the boomers. And union-won retirement benefits were so good back then. Plus that money was tied up in the retirement scheme, so you couldn't "defect" and spend it to compete for housing (driving up prices) rather than putting it in your 401k.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#253

Post by Zigurd »

Beltalowda wrote: post #241
Zigurd wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who killed all the gamergaters?

These are like a few thousands people, maybe in the tens of thousands at the most . There are about 1 billion men on the internet, give or take. The internet is very good at amplifying a bunch of very motivated nutjobs. I can, if I wanted to, send death threats and all sorts of horrible things to hundreds of people before breakfast. And tomorrow again. And the day after that. And I'm just one guy with a crummy laptop…

The point is: men with this grievance are doing it to themselves. If you think Jordan Peterson or Andrew Tate are going to break you out of "the matrix" and restore the proper roles of men, that's only going to make you hideous to normal people, especially women, even if you 'roided up and got a Joe Rogan neck size. There is no shortage of these men that filled the ranks of gamergaters, the various "patriot" brownshirt gangs, etc. They are very much among us and they are horrible misogynists. Pretending they died off three generations ago is unproductive and nutty.

It's not being amplified without effect, recruitment, and numbers. Jordan Peterson would not be a podcast star without a large population of followers. Those followers are being misled into misogyny and related "red pill" ideologies.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#254

Post by 9530jh9054ven »

TylerLives wrote: post #168
goldenchrome wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re NEETs. Likely live with their parents. May sell odd things here and there to make a buck. Likely invested in cryptos which until recently was enough to get by. Often getting some government gibs like unemployment or disability benefits. American society doesn’t know how to use low skilled men so we keep ‘em fed and put them to the side.

>American society doesn’t know how to use low skilled men What's the solution though? I can think of 3: 1) Bullshit jobs (i.e. fake jobs or real jobs that exist only to support fake jobs. This is the current answer) 2) Universal Basic Income - Doesn't solve the problem of giving people meaningful work, but gives them some freedom to discover/create their own solutions 3) Artificially making life more difficult - For…

Cynically speaking, supported and freely provided voluntary euthanasia is also an option as well... with all the good and ill that option brings. I'd certainty take that option if I couldn't ends meet.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#255

Post by [deleted] »

lazide wrote: post #234
whatshisface wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a basic human need to be valued by others and to be part of a community, and the system we have now grades people according to traits that are mainly genetic and casts them aside if they aren't seen as desirable enough. As for what the cut is, well, it's many-faceted, but the waterline is rising and as you age all of your desirable traits are fading. If you have real personal relationships (either career or f…

When has that ever NOT been the case?

[deleted]

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#256

Post by wpietri »

ZGDUwpqEWpUZ wrote: post #225
wpietri wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that "sort of person" I have a hard time believing you can't figure this out on your own, but briefly, the manosphere. As to the rest, I am truly sorry to hear about your sexual assault. But I'm also sorry that you, like so many of the "sort of person" I'm talking about, have turned a bad experience into a reason to bash feminism rather than a reason to fight things like rape culture. If even with your experience c…

> the manosphere You're talking in circles here - you brought up what "sort of person" is in the manosphere, and your answer is people in the manosphere. Not exactly insightful. The so-called manosphere is a wildly diverse grouping with different experiences, complaints, and conclusions. Lumping in Andrew Tate with Men's Rights is just nonsensical. > bash feminism rather than a reason to fight things like rape cultur…

I obviously disagree in almost every particular here, but we seem to be mainly talking past one another, so I'm tapping out here. I am truly sorry about your experience though, just as I am for everyone who has been sexually assaulted.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#257

Post by fxtentacle »

lordfrito wrote: post #215

My 2c. Society doesn't care about young men. They're pretty much left to fend for themselves. Hopefully they have a good family structure, and a few good male friends. Without that they're toally adrift. I learned this lesson when I got a flat tire driving across two states when I was 20. No one is willing to help. I guarantee a 20 yo woman would have no problem flagging down help, heck people would stop to help with…

I also noticed this in university and I was curious enough about it to read some history books. I believe that society never cared about young men. They were always left to fend for themselves.

In my opinion, the part that's new in modern times is the transparency caused by the internet. Rags to riches, washing dishes to becoming a billionaire, ... these stories have always been extremely unlikely to happen in practice. But without a way to check the statistics, people still kind of believed in them. With the access to information that we have now, that is changing and so people are checking out when they notice that the structure of society is stacked against them. I mean it always has been, but without the internet people didn't notice it so clearly.

And yes, I also believe that feminism might play a role, but more on the demand side: Nowadays, it is not mandatory anymore for the man to have a good enough job to feed the family, because double-income-households have become the norm. Back in the days where typically only the man would be the breadwinner, there was probably a stronger psychological pressure for men to deliver. I'm not sure if the absence of that nagging is good or bad, but it sure changed in the past 50 years.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#258

Post by whatshisface »

lazide wrote: post #234
whatshisface wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a basic human need to be valued by others and to be part of a community, and the system we have now grades people according to traits that are mainly genetic and casts them aside if they aren't seen as desirable enough. As for what the cut is, well, it's many-faceted, but the waterline is rising and as you age all of your desirable traits are fading. If you have real personal relationships (either career or f…

When has that ever NOT been the case?

The idea that there's a certain line below which some mentally disabled or physically deformed people would go from being normal members to society to objects of charity has always been there, and it has always been a problem, but what's new is the extension of that category minus the charity to perfectly healthy 50 year old guys who basically have nothing wrong with them.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#259

Post by lazide »

luckylion wrote: post #251
lazide wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If society feels like it wants it to, it’s hard to evade the various means of enforcement society has created and funded for the purpose.

That's true, and I don't think society will say "we've let you down but in return you don't owe taxes". I meant to ask more about the ethics. Should you feel obligated to uphold your end if the other side does not?

Practically, does it matter if the other side has guns and doesn’t care what the person thinks?

(Ethically, of course, spherical cows and all, there are many ways to discuss it - but why?)

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#260

Post by JKCalhoun »

whatshisface wrote: post #192
JKCalhoun wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I seriously felt like "society had no interest in me". I'm pretty sure society is not obligated to have an interest in you (I'm not trying to put words in your mouth however). I think you become truly actualized only when you decide what it is you want, what you imagine for yourself. If what you want is in conflict with what society wants of you, you have to decide then whether it is important enough to you to take…

There's a basic human need to be valued by others and to be part of a community, and the system we have now grades people according to traits that are mainly genetic and casts them aside if they aren't seen as desirable enough. As for what the cut is, well, it's many-faceted, but the waterline is rising and as you age all of your desirable traits are fading. If you have real personal relationships (either career or f…

I agree, but there are communities within the larger community. If you're into D&D you can fit comfortably within a like-community of RPGamers.

And I can't help but think back to the punks, or goths or any of the other disenfranchised youth cultures that appeared to revel even in the rejection from broader society.

"The children they despise us, the difference is now we want to be hated."

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