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Education and Men without Work

nationalaffairs.com

171–180 of 342 posts

Re: Education and Men without Work

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biologically, humans shouldn't exist in tribes of greater than like 20 people or some small number. Socially, we have countries with millions of people living under one flag. It turns out the hypergamy negatively affects the average man more than the elite man. So how do you build a system the ensures that the vast majority of men don't die off? You must control for hypergamy. Polygamy is a smaller issue, because the…

You have some good points but the Scarlet Letter style conclusion scares me. What I'd like to see is a society that addresses the essential biological needs of men and women without stoning, beheading, drumming up wars or twitter shaming. It's a big project though.

I mean, we're currently living through the equivalent for men.

Except instead of "A" for adulteress, it's "L" for loser.

Funny how the tides come and go. But you're right, we don't want to keep swinging the pendulum back and forth, we should work towards balance. The only way you can balance an unstable system is by learning more about it and accepting its truths.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video games are more mentally challenging & stimulating overall than any other task I regularly engage in. Especially Starcraft, which is absolutely exhausting to play competitively. My day to day work as a programmer just doesn't push me mentally very hard. The kind of deep, exhaustive thinking I needed to get through difficult CS classes is unnecessary in most of my work (and the pacing is rather languid, most of t…

Come join us in the D development effort. We have plenty of productive things to do that will push you past your limits. This kind of work is also good for giving your career a boost - this has happened to many on the D team.

Do you guys accept contribution from junior devs (2-4 years out of college that have no compiler experience)?

Re: Education and Men without Work

#173

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…

While I think you make some fair points, did you really need to be so adversarial and self-righteous? I wonder to what extent such a delivery neuters productive discussion.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#174

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…

> I think that the heart of the issue is that more men nowadays feel that they just don't matter.

Isn't everyone feeling this? Maybe men are feeling the ways that others have felt for a long time?

I agree that the loss of privilege is definitely happening, which is honestly a good thing imo, but I'd tie this back to greater cultural unease about one's economic future more than anything else. Most of the folks I know are in their 30s and don't believe they'll ever retire.

If the system is squeezing every ounce of your labor out and you're only seeing a small return on it, what's keeping you motivated?

Re: Education and Men without Work

#175
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Men generally have the biological need to go do and wander and discover things. I don't know whether it's hormones or what. Debate all you like elsewhere (I'm not trying to debate that point here). What an obnoxious thing to do. You know you're stating a controversial opinion, or you wouldn't have said that. You don't get to set the rules of conversation like that.

Especially without any attempt at citation. "I'm going to say a deliberately inflammatory thing and also it's not up for discussion. But it's also the foundation upon which my argument is built. No critiquing that though, because then my argument might not be sound."

You can mentally translate the argument from "X is true", to "P implies X", where P is the statement that OP didn't want to debate, which I think leads to some valuable discussion, without having to assume anything about how true P is.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#176
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the current prevailing theory is that the guys are getting high and playing video games? What's the current prevailing theory for the girls? Doing unformalized work that doesn't show up in the stats? Also playing games and doing drugs?

Look at the chart. There are now a lot more women in the labor force than there were in the 1940s. Back then, they were staying home with the kids. Now, women are having children later and often working (at least part time) once they have them.

1940 was wwii. That is when men went to war (on all sides - many to commit genocide) and women went to work either to feed themselves or cause economy needed it (yes some to support that genocide on home front).

Re: Education and Men without Work

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come join us in the D development effort. We have plenty of productive things to do that will push you past your limits. This kind of work is also good for giving your career a boost - this has happened to many on the D team.

Do you guys accept contribution from junior devs (2-4 years out of college that have no compiler experience)?

We don't care who you are or what your resume looks like. If your work is excellent and is what we need, we'll accept it.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#178
post #91
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…

[deleted]

Re: Education and Men without Work

#179

As unpopular it may be to say such a politically incorrect thing (admitting this is a generalization, and all the caveats that come with it) -- Men generally have the biological need to go do and wander and discover things. I don't know whether it's hormones or what. Debate all you like elsewhere (I'm not trying to debate that point here). My point is that when they don't get an outlet to do this, they cause trouble.…

"Men generally have the biological need to go do and wander and discover things." I see no evidence that this is a male thing, versus a female thing, or even that all men feel this. I see plenty of men who just coast through life with no curiosity or drive. They don't explore or discover, they just consume and do what they're told so they can consume some more.

Just because you don't see it doesn't mean it isn't there. Most of my male friends that fit under what the article is talking about have wants/desires. They're just covered up by crippling anxiety/depression.

Not to validate that men only have these traits. But ultimately most of the conversation on here comes from the stereotypes we as a society place on gender based off of a misunderstanding of evolution.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#180
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…

While I would agree that this is an unpopular opinion, it's one I've come to terms with myself as I've grown older. There's a book I read that's popular in men's rights advocate circles called "The Myth of Male Power" that explores the idea of males being the "disposable" sex. Unfortunately, we live in a time where you're branded a misogynist for even mentioning the possibility that men face some serious disadvantage…

>we live in a time where you're branded a misogynist for even mentioning the possibility that men face some serious disadvantages in modern American society.

no we don't

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