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Education and Men without Work

nationalaffairs.com

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Re: Education and Men without Work

#121

Post by tmux314 »

jfengel wrote: post #91
tmux314 wrote: post #42

There's a very weird "let them eat cake" attitude in this thread which I find distressing. The study reports on the millions of working age men in the US who are essentially too depressed and face too many obstacles to search for work. Instead, they're spending their days staying inside, getting high, and playing video games. They essentially have little to no chance to pursue romantic relationships. Many of them eve…

The problem, I think, is that the article seems to believe that the solution is "return to the 1950s". The world has changed. The relationships between men and women have changed. The relationship of the economy to individuals has changed. The article seems predicated on the notion that this number (male participation in the labor force) is the metric that matters, rather than anything about their mental health -- ha…

In the "Supply-Side Solutions" section, the author recommends improving k-12 education, more vocational training opportunities, and better counseling. I'm not sure if any of those recommendations entail "returning to the 1950s".

The author also notes that this trend is unique to the US, as this trend doesn't exist in other never-communist democracies. These other countries have increased female workplace participation, but don't have the mass male drop-out of the workforce.

Overall, I think it was a good, balanced analysis of the issue and I did not pick up on desire to return to the "good ole days".

Re: Education and Men without Work

#122

Post by lopmotr »

CptFribble wrote: post #30

I don't see why this is such a surprise, most people hate working. I thought it was almost a truism that people work for retirement, i.e. the point in their life when they have enough saved to stop working and just relax and travel or fish or whatever. If there's a way to skip 30 years of working at a job you hate and just start now, most people would take that option. This is the basic problem with basic income, alt…

People want to relax and go fishing when they're working, not when they've got nothing to do all day. Retirement only looks good while you're working unless you have enough self drive to actively pursue your hobbies when retired, which hardly anyone does. Retirement also shortens your life, at least for men.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#123

Post by marcosdumay »

frockington1 wrote: post #92
downerending wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the kind of safety net they're talking about, but a lot of the young are supported at a livable level by their parents. (source: am doing this) I'd argue that this isn't inherently bad, but ultimately this can amount to "eating one's seed corn". In the long run, twenty-somethings that do this risk a financially more perilous life and a lower chance of being able to give their kids a good start in life.

Is there anything you have done that has improved motivation of your kids to get out of the house? I'm asking as a mid-twenty year old who has a few friends that haven't had a real job in years and wants to help. The main issue I've run into is that they just don;t care they are burdening their parents

When I was younger, everybody just wished for independence. What changed?

I'm betting on housing cost and low quality of life for youngs, but well, I do have very little evidence to substantiate it.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#124

Post by vharuck »

Mirioron wrote: post #63
tathougies wrote: post #5

The article is long on detail and short on suggestions (which is understandable). However, the suggestions it does make are not obviously going to work. The men illustrated in the article do not seem incapable of work, but rather disinterested. Vocational training isn't going to fix the fact that the government benefits the article cited allows the men to stay at home playing video games all day. Most people (but esp…

I don't think the two causes listed in the article are actually the causes. I think both are yet another symptom of an underlying problem. I would argue that men doing worse in schooling is likely another symptom of the same issue. I think that the heart of the issue is that more men nowadays feel that they just don't matter. Not to society nor to anyone else. This leads to a situation where they will simply sacrific…

What about the idea that the passing on of power (wealth, social, political) is happening less as people live longer? It would explain why the problem's more pronounced in Japan (long life expectancy, culture of seniority).

Re: Education and Men without Work

#125

Post by indigochill »

diN0bot wrote: post #44
cheshireoctopus wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> given the propensity of the male psyche to become dependent on dopamine Interesting. This anecdotally appears to be the case. Is there anything to back this point up?

could also be differences in socializations and cultural expectations. consider how we demonize single-moms receiving aid (god forbid they be women of color) and "boys will be boys" males fooling around and playing video games.

There is another aspect here which I suspect contributes the majority of the demonizing in this situation: being a single parent is assumed to be a sign of a broken relationship, which signals potential personal problems (whether poor judgment in a partner, poor conflict management, whatever). Of course, in reality there could be a plethora of other reasons, but this seems to be the assumed narrative.

On the other hand, consider the woman who's still single with no kids, maybe living at home with her parents, with no job. I suspect there'd be a lot less demonizing. Maybe even less so than towards the men, who are "supposed to be providing for a family".

Re: Education and Men without Work

#126

Post by matz1 »

linuxftw wrote: post #110
roenxi wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a well written article for presenting facts. The lack of solutions is welcome to me; and I recall that the word 'crisis' is closer to meaning an unstable situation than an actual problem. The big open question here is what exactly should these people doing instead? 'Getting a job' is meaningless in itself - it isn't an end goal like 'secure my family's future'. If someone can survive comfortably without working…

> If someone can survive comfortably without working then that is exactly what they should be doing Sure, as long as they are able to afford this on their own dime. Why should others have to work so some can stay at home all day?

>Why should others have to work so some can stay at home all day?

they don't have to, they can stay at home too but stay at home can be very depressing.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#127

Post by [deleted] »

tathougies wrote: post #112
roenxi wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a well written article for presenting facts. The lack of solutions is welcome to me; and I recall that the word 'crisis' is closer to meaning an unstable situation than an actual problem. The big open question here is what exactly should these people doing instead? 'Getting a job' is meaningless in itself - it isn't an end goal like 'secure my family's future'. If someone can survive comfortably without working…

> If someone can survive comfortably without working then that is exactly what they should be doing; work isn't especially fun unless someone is a bit lucky with what they enjoy. As someone planning on retiring early, I completely agree, but these men are dependent on government benefits, which, being taken from my paycheck, are lengthening the amount of time I have before I can retire.

[deleted]

Re: Education and Men without Work

#128

Post by kevingadd »

tathougies wrote: post #112
roenxi wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a well written article for presenting facts. The lack of solutions is welcome to me; and I recall that the word 'crisis' is closer to meaning an unstable situation than an actual problem. The big open question here is what exactly should these people doing instead? 'Getting a job' is meaningless in itself - it isn't an end goal like 'secure my family's future'. If someone can survive comfortably without working…

> If someone can survive comfortably without working then that is exactly what they should be doing; work isn't especially fun unless someone is a bit lucky with what they enjoy. As someone planning on retiring early, I completely agree, but these men are dependent on government benefits, which, being taken from my paycheck, are lengthening the amount of time I have before I can retire.

"taken from your paycheck" is a bit of an overstatement. many people on federal or state disability have previously paid into the social security, disability etc pools with paycheck deductions just like you have. the average person on benefits is not a freeloader.

when I got put on disability by my doctor, you weren't paying for me to not work. I was, because I've been paying into the fund for my entire career just like you have

Re: Education and Men without Work

#129

Post by allovernow »

munificent wrote: post #103
mythrwy wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be an unpopular opinion but the real issue (biologically) is that we don't need all the men. We only need a tiny percentage of men. So how societies sometimes dealt with this excess of men was to send a good number of them off to war. Also occupations used to be much more hazardous so many more die working. The days of bundling laggers up in a red coat and sending them off with a musket to make the queens em…

> we don't need all the men. We only need a tiny percentage of men. Relevant: A single male galapagos turtle sired 800 offspring, single-handedly (well, I guess it wasn't his hand) saving his species from extinction. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/12/world/americas/diego-tort... > Also occupations used to be much more hazardous so many more die working. Right. Females are precious (in the eyes of genetics) because t…

>But we keep making the world safer and safer and now we are finding out that our culture no longer effectively knows what to do.

I can't say I agree with everything in your post, but this assertion is reasonable. I'd say civilization has already discovered a partial solution to this problem: monogamy where men satisfy their evolutionary urges for usefulness through breadwinning. It isn't perfect for everyone but it's probably the most optimal overall solution, especially when you consider that once basic needs are met, the average person is content to live the life prescribed to them by society. What I'm saying is that maybe we don't need to indoctrinate our youth with the notion that historic gender roles are totally evil and oppressive - we're seeing a lot of the fallout from that practice in contemporary Western society.

No, not every woman wants to be constrained to a life of housework and childrearing, and not every man has the ambition to make a name for himself; but on average humans have innate desires/drives which have specialized, over tens of thousands of generations such that average life satisfaction is strongly predicated upon traditional gender roles.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#130

Post by [deleted] »

r0pchainer wrote: post #116

I am trying to figure out when people will realize that a society without healthy men taking charge and pushing forward is a dying society. It's even more obvious when we see other countries whose feminization of men has actually led to the decline of their population. Reading the sterile, cerebral responses here is a bit disconcerting, but expected given the participating audience, because "smart" people assume that…

[deleted]
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