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The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

nytimes.com

111–120 of 288 posts

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#111

The problem is there is a multiplier affect from technology today that causes unemployment. The average IQ required to be economically relevant is increasing each year.

It's not as though if everyone were a Harvard-educated brainiac it would suddenly be possible for everyone to have high-paying jobs.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#112
post #92

I live in france, am 29, I worked 2 months in my life. "what they do instead" Trying to go back to school, I learned programming for 2 years in some technician school program, did not get the degree, after that I expanded my programming skills by myself, but it has been pretty bleak. I'm quite ashamed of myself. I have many ideas of projects, but they really seems to be out of my reach in terms of skill, experience,…

> I don't feel the industry really needs that many programmers.

That's definitely false, at least in the US.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we cannot produce more, because the unemployed don't consume. So we lay of people. It is a death spiral.

If your future economic prospects require ever increasing consumption then surely there's a problem; resources are finite. If we need more people consuming more and more stuff (that mostly gets put in landfill within a couple of years) then we're completely screwed. We need to start restructuring our way of life to accommodate the need to conserve resources, for one, and the need to support a basic standard of living…

> If your future economic prospects require ever increasing consumption then surely there's a problem; resources are finite.

Yeah, that's the inherent contradiction of capitalism. But unless someone comes along with a different system we're probably stuck with that for a while.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#114
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we cannot produce more, because the unemployed don't consume. So we lay of people. It is a death spiral.

This is also wrong. You just have to switch what to produce and to whom. There are many starving people in the world, and quite a lot new medicals to invent and so on.

Yes, wonderful. The wretched of the earth are a huge untapped market with tons of disposable income.

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#116
post #18
post #5

There are books on this phenomenon. Part of what they say is now men have access to their basic needs with out needing to work as much. Entertainment is abundant and relatively cheap and sex isn't tied to marriage. You can lounge around and be if not exactly satisfied, at least not terrible wanting for stuff. Of course these guys are screwed when it comes to retirement.

just "these guys"? everyone will be screwed.

> just "these guys"? everyone will be screwed.

Why? I'm pretty sure I'll be totally fine in retirement (predicted savings of $5M+).

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#117
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possible result of Iraq/Afghanistan wars? The army's reported 1 million injured, but I'm not sure how many of them transitioned to disability. Would disabled veterans be reflected in these numbers?

One entire million injured? Something must be off there, otherwise the injury rate would be ludicrously high relative to the small number of troops we had in the wars.

It's apparently this story:

http://www.ibtimes.com/va-stops-releasing-data-injured-vets-...

Which I think uses these numbers:

http://www.publichealth.va.gov/epidemiology/reports/oefoifon...

Which are the numbers of veterans that accessed VA facilities for health care, not the numbers of veterans that were injured (disabling injuries are one of the major eligibility factors for the VA, but there are other veterans that would also be eligible for VA services).

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#118

One of my neighbors is 62 and brilliant. He's worked at Pixar and Silicon Graphics. He cranked out web sites for sites you probably go to. He lost his last job when the company went under. He now applies for jobs all over town and never gets a reply. If age is the reason, these places don't know what they're missing.

Maybe with that much experience they don't think they can afford him?

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#119
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does that mean that more Indians are unemployed, or that the reservations were placed in the greatest economic crapholes that could be found?

The folks living in the reservations have not grown their economies. Economic growth isn't something that happens automatically; you have to go out and start new enterprises, invent new technologies, etc. Some cultures are simply incapable of this and will eventually die out; if you want an extreme example go read "Don't Sleep, There are Snakes" by Daniel Everett.

You have to be kidding. The Indians are poor because their degenerate culture causes them to be totally cool with poverty?

Re: The Rise of Men Who Don’t Work – And What They Do Instead

#120
post #108

> People in the military, prison and institutions are excluded from these figures. One of these is not like the other… Everyone in the military (at least, who's not also imprisoned) should count as fully-employed.

I think the reason they excluded those in the military is to allow an apples-to-apples comparison through time. It could be argued that the large number of draftees through the early 1970's forced some otherwise nonemployed into employment.
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