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A disaster is looming for American men

washingtonpost.com

11–20 of 93 posts

Re: A disaster is looming for American men

#12

Is this only a problem for men? And if so why? I can't help but think that an article this short can't be anything more than fluff.

I can think of a few reasons. 1) Women are graduating from college at a higher rate than men. 2) Women are going to college at a higher rate than men. 3) Women have a higher literacy rate than men. 4) Women graduate from high school at a higher rate than men. These trends are likely to continue. I don't see any possible scenario where men are not worse off in 20 years than they are today, while the higher educated wo…

And the "housewife" skew was probably pretty heavy in the 1970's, where his data starts.

Re: A disaster is looming for American men

#13

> "Job destruction caused by technology is not a futuristic concern. It is something we have been living with for two generations" If American thought leaders such as Larry Summers think that technology destroys jobs and that it's a relatively recent phenomenon, then America is truly screwed.

I'll leave this here for those making the "technical unemployment" argument.

After hundreds of years of virtually the same argument being made, I think the burden is on you to say why this time is different.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_unemployment#Pre...

Re: A disaster is looming for American men

#15
Luddite arguments aside, why would anyone care what Larry Summers thinks? This is the same guy that was a principal behind repealing Glass-Steagall. If anything we should just do and think the opposite of whatever he says.

Re: A disaster is looming for American men

#18
post #5

> "Job destruction caused by technology is not a futuristic concern. It is something we have been living with for two generations" If American thought leaders such as Larry Summers think that technology destroys jobs and that it's a relatively recent phenomenon, then America is truly screwed.

It's all just this century's Luddites

Nonsense. I encourage you to point out a single industry that has cropped up in the last 50 years that generates large numbers of high paying jobs that aren't subject to being automated away. In 1985 people freaking out about computers and networking was luddite behavior. Where are the 3.5 million currently un-filled jobs waiting for the truck drivers who are about to lose their careers en masse?

Re: A disaster is looming for American men

#19
Disaster is already here. In the 1950's you could raise a family with 2.3 children on a 40 hour work week. Today, families are struggling to make ends meet with 60-70+ hour work weeks. Technology was supposed to have made things more efficient. It seems to have had the opposite effect.

Re: A disaster is looming for American men

#20

Is this only a problem for men? And if so why? I can't help but think that an article this short can't be anything more than fluff.

I appreciate a brief article like this which flags a serious issue without feeling obligated to explain the cause of the issue. Would the facts have changed if the author had added debatable speculation as to causes? If he had included speculation, would discussion here have focused on the problem, or would it have focused the easier debate about the causes?

It's okay to file a bug report without pointing out the design defect that caused the issue.

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