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No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

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Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#21

Post by ragingrobot »

apwell23 wrote: post #3
lenerdenator wrote: post #2

We didn't want young men to do anything. We wanted ever-increasing returns for shareholders, and that meant moving factories (where these young men's grandfathers were working 60 years ago) overseas while doing nothing on the whole to retrain the workforce. We got the shareholder returns. Too bad that can't buy a functional society for people born after 1980.

workforce in usa seems pretty good. Have you seen the homeprices they are able to afford ?

Have you seen the sacrifices made to afford those homes? Just because someone owns a home doesn't show the whole picture.

There are plenty of Americans that own homes and are struggling to make ends meet elsewhere.

Home ownership is set up to consume a person. Miss a payment and there are serious repercussions to one's financial well being, so it becomes a priority.

Up to a point, miss a credit card payment and it's extra fees. Miss a utility bill a month, and it's the same. Buy less food and you'll survive, albeit less comfortably.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#22

Post by throwawaysleep »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #13
apwell23 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

workforce in usa seems pretty good. Have you seen the homeprices they are able to afford ?

I don’t think you have grasped the catastrophic damage the housing crisis has done to trust in the western economic system. At this point younger generation would put the CCP in charge in they knew they’d fix housing. And they would.

Younger generation is owning homes at the fastest pace in history.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/katherinehamilton/2023/04/21/ge...

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#23

Post by mistermann »

asynchronous wrote: post #6
lenerdenator wrote: post #2

We didn't want young men to do anything. We wanted ever-increasing returns for shareholders, and that meant moving factories (where these young men's grandfathers were working 60 years ago) overseas while doing nothing on the whole to retrain the workforce. We got the shareholder returns. Too bad that can't buy a functional society for people born after 1980.

I want a financial person to explain to me why we continue to expect exponential growth of companies’ revenue year after year, and why that makes any logical sense in a world with finite resources.

If you're willing to drop the "logical" constraint, I think this explains most of humanity due to us being fundamentally a story-based species:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect

In our culture, someone bringing logic to the table is likely to get crushed by someone bringing a good story.

And to make the situation even funnier: most anyone could tell you story after story about this phenomenon! It reminds me of:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

https://slatestarcodex.com/2015/04/21/universal-love-said-th...

(Ironically, this too is a story, lol...perhaps no other way existing is part of the problem?)

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#24

Post by JKCalhoun »

> Norms were loosened around being an absentee father. So more men took the option.

> But nobody wants to admit it because it upsets people.

Author can explain "everyone".

> Instead, we retreat to discussions of poverty and economics because talking about family and parenting makes people feel weird and judgmental.

And again.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#25

Post by supportengineer »

lenerdenator wrote: post #2

We didn't want young men to do anything. We wanted ever-increasing returns for shareholders, and that meant moving factories (where these young men's grandfathers were working 60 years ago) overseas while doing nothing on the whole to retrain the workforce. We got the shareholder returns. Too bad that can't buy a functional society for people born after 1980.

Capital wanted to break labor. And they did.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#26

Post by vegetablepotpie »

This article spells out the incentive structure that leads to low-status men underperforming.

> Some of the jobs he can get don’t pay enough to give him the self-respect he feels he needs, and others require him to get along with unpleasant customers and coworkers, and to maintain a submissive attitude toward the boss.

> The educated class decides cohabiting partnerships are just as valid and important as marriage. And they also believe it’s okay to walk away at a moment’s notice from a cohabiting relationship… Poor and working-class people follow suit.

Tightening constraints from the employer class around employment, and loosening constraints from middle class individuals on cultural expectations leads to low status men abandoning their partners.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#27

Post by lenerdenator »

theryan wrote: post #11
foobarbecue wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the thing. Most people can't afford a home here; we're renters. The exception is upper class people riding stock market hype bubbles.

I think that's a bit disingenuous. Home ownership under 35 is nearly 40%. 35 and up it increases to above 60% https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/07/younger-house... has some nice statistics.

It'd be interesting to see what would happen to 35 and up if you excluded everyone born before, idk, 1980, and then again if you excluded everyone born before 1965.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#28

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

nradov wrote: post #12
foobarbecue wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's the thing. Most people can't afford a home here; we're renters. The exception is upper class people riding stock market hype bubbles.

False. The homeownership rate is about 66%. Most people can afford a home here. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N

> The homeownership rate is about 66%.

And declining.

    Homeowner vs. renter statistics reflect a decline in homeownership
https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/renters-vs-homeowne...

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#29

Post by keybored »

neilv wrote: post #8
lenerdenator wrote: post #2

We didn't want young men to do anything. We wanted ever-increasing returns for shareholders, and that meant moving factories (where these young men's grandfathers were working 60 years ago) overseas while doing nothing on the whole to retrain the workforce. We got the shareholder returns. Too bad that can't buy a functional society for people born after 1980.

Also: Nobody in a village should take up 2 houses for themself. But some can, and can even take up 100 houses... so long as the other villagers are fighting amongst themselves, over whether their house should be larger than that of their neighbor. Turns out most of their problems are arguably traceable back to those people with 100+ houses each. Which would be glaringly suspicious to an outside observer. But the vill…

What’s ironic[1] about these comments is they set up these ignorant-sheep narrative about how the villagers are bickering among themselves. Which begets more finger-pointing among the villagers instead of looking at the real source of their problems.

[1] Not ironic if you don’t think you’re one of the villagers.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#30

Post by kubb »

Born too late to enjoy exponential asset growth. Born too soon to see the true environmental impact of the asset growth.

Lost generation, can I just get some drugs to cope please, my computer job is making me lose my humanity ;(

Just kidding it’s all good :)

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