Men Without Work (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#171

Post by wpietri » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:46 PM UTC

ZGDUwpqEWpUZ wrote: post #139

wpietri wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. I think there's a pretty simple answer to this question: > What explains this asymmetry? What explains it is an asymmetrical history: millennia of oppression of women, often violently enforced. E.g., if you read the Iliad, it's basically a who-stole-my-woman story inside a who-stole-my-woman story; at the time, women were pretty close to property with opinions. An easy way to see the through-line to today is…

Kindly visit the Men's Rights Movement wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_rights_movement Go through the issues in the second section and tell me what Andrew Tate's position was on any of them. Spoiler alert: you can't. Tate was not an MRA, he was a pickup artist. Male feminists also tend to find themselves in trouble, by the way. Michael Kimmel used to play the same game of lumping legitimate issues (s…

Is this just a nitpick on Tate in particular? That was a side note, and one I don't think you quite got, as I didn't say he was an MRA, just popular among the same sort of people. Which I think you'd have a hard time denying.

And my point isn't that the men's rights people don't have legitimate points about how patriarchy also harms men. They do! My point is that for an awful lot of people, those points are a cloak for a deeply emotional backlash against feminism. So I'm less interested in what they claim motivates them than what we can learn from what they actually spend their time and attention on.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#172

Post by ianai » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:47 PM UTC

willcipriano wrote: post #84

afavour wrote: post #8

I'm very far from a red-pilled anti-feminist but I do think this is a hugely overlooked problem. Perhaps too much of an aside but I was lucky enough to be able to take an extended parental leave when my child was born, being a "stay at home dad" for the best part of a year. It was incredibly hard work, incredibly rewarding but also a real eye opener at how society still doesn't know what to do with a full-time parent…

We didn't let Jordan Petersons (not that he is some sort of ideal) brand of masculinity out and now we are stuck with the Andrew Tate style. Masculinity is something that needs to be cultivated, trying to stamp it out just results in weeds.

One (not the best) way to judge a world view or policy is to simply empower it and let it play itself out. Then investigate the value add to society and itself over time. Both of your examples wound up being problematic in the fullness of time.

I definitely think there’s a place in the human world for the masculine and feminine and etc. But actual bullying, which I think relates to much toxic masculinity, rightfully should be countered. It doesn’t help that much toxic masculinity, to me, seems based in fundamental weakness or fear. (So address the underlying source of fear as a psychological phenomenon.)

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#173

Post by Damogran6 » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:48 PM UTC

judge2020 wrote: post #121

Damogran6 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unspecified in all of this is: Society at large needs less labor to function. What happens when all of the production is automated to the point we don't NEED 'Men to work'? What do we do with them? What mischief do they get into when they have idle hands?

Even if something like food service at McDonald's is automated, it's tough to argue that we should be getting humans to work on things that can be automated. Imagine working 40 hours a week then seeing that the machine both prepared more product and made fewer mistakes than you, or feeling like you're doing work just because someone (the government) pities you enough to force some jobs to remain non-automated. Workin…

The problem with that is that there are people that are more or less intelligent and more or less motivated.

There's NOTHING wrong with the occasional menial task, and there's nothing wrong with being unmotivated, so long as it's not a net negative drain on society.

Once everything is automated away, I suspect it won't be the Star Trekian Utopia we'd like.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#174

Post by fundad » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:50 PM UTC

ponow wrote: post #87

blahblah1234567 wrote: post #53

I think "Men Without Work" is a euphemism. The problem is: - Men without Skills in-demand-- skills which are at least somewhat fulfilling & interesting to those men. Solution: Research labor data for careers in high demand, then cross reference those careers with skills a person is interested in. Then identify resources & a roadmap for learning those skills. And sit down, and put the time in to learn & apply those sk…

It's one thing to say that about very young men, and quite another who followed society's and especially goverment's pushing and funding of higher and higher education. Only later do they find out that their crazy study hours were largely wasted, and they'd have done much better in a trade. They were led astray. It would be better for people to be integrated into the workforce _during_ their education, to ensure that…

Do you really feel your hours of study were wasted?

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#175

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:58 PM UTC

JKCalhoun wrote: post #77

adversaryIdiot wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

man I am so happy i heard someone else say it too. I seriously felt like "society had no interest in me". Not being able to find a job and getting no matches on things like tinder left me devastated. I am on anti depressants and fear that time to this day.

> I seriously felt like "society had no interest in me". I'm pretty sure society is not obligated to have an interest in you (I'm not trying to put words in your mouth however). I think you become truly actualized only when you decide what it is you want, what you imagine for yourself. If what you want is in conflict with what society wants of you, you have to decide then whether it is important enough to you to take…

[deleted]

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#176

Post by s1artibartfast » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 5:59 PM UTC

luckylion wrote: post #167

Mezzie wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fascinating question because we're in a transitionary period. Like my mother, who is very much alive and still working, was 100% a victim of sexism: She was alive in and grew up in times where she couldn't have a credit card or mortgage, when jobs were sex-segregated, and wasn't allowed to go to college to be an engineer like her brother because she was raised to stay at home and pop out babies. (She bailed…

What makes that super weird for me is the inheritance by gender. I get reparations, e.g. for enslaving people. In its simplest form, you break it down to "should have been paid instead" and make that a claim that can be inherited. There are arguments about collective guilt and claims against collectives etc, but that's a second step. But women aren't an ethnic group. Children are pretty much a 50/50 split between mal…

That is a really interesting perspective.

Even if you buy into intergenerational guilt and benefit for groups, each new generation (without exception) must come from both groups.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#177

Post by ZGDUwpqEWpUZ » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:04 PM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #171

ZGDUwpqEWpUZ wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kindly visit the Men's Rights Movement wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_rights_movement Go through the issues in the second section and tell me what Andrew Tate's position was on any of them. Spoiler alert: you can't. Tate was not an MRA, he was a pickup artist. Male feminists also tend to find themselves in trouble, by the way. Michael Kimmel used to play the same game of lumping legitimate issues (s…

Is this just a nitpick on Tate in particular? That was a side note, and one I don't think you quite got, as I didn't say he was an MRA, just popular among the same sort of people. Which I think you'd have a hard time denying. And my point isn't that the men's rights people don't have legitimate points about how patriarchy also harms men. They do! My point is that for an awful lot of people, those points are a cloak f…

> just popular among the same sort of people. Which I think you'd have a hard time denying.

I'd have a hard time denying it because I have no idea what that "sort of person" is even supposed to be. Is it just people you don't like?

I went down the Men's Rights rabbithole because I got sexually assaulted by a woman as a teenager and didn't know how to deal with it. They were the only ones talking about it, and I assure you nobody involved had any interest in relegalizing marital rape.

Rather, that seems to be a bit of DARVO given that feminist thinkers like Mary Koss would see happened to me reduced to "unwanted contact".

> And my point isn't that the men's rights people don't have legitimate points about how patriarchy also harms men.

"Patriarchy hurts men too" is empty handwaving, not a substitute for genuine solutions.

Given your little quip - "think of all the men who haven't been murdered as they slept" - I doubt you'll be interested in providing help for men (or boys, as it was) like myself. If that's the feminist line, then it is clear that feminism, to put it mildly, isn't for me.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#178

Post by freshpots » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:05 PM UTC

beyond_based wrote: post #162

freshpots wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a serious reply? Do you believe what you said here?

Entirely serious. It’s short to keep it to a point and so some nuance is missing, but there you have it. I don’t mind the flagging - I don’t expect anything more from people unwilling to take a look at things objectively.

I didn't flag it, but I am not even remotely surprised that it was.

You have an incredibly toxic, misogynistic, and incel-based worldview that is very unhealthy. Virtually every ill you stated was the fault of women, even consumerism and violence. How many women were mass shooters again? Started wars?

It is frightening that you really think that way, and I worry for those in your orbit after hearing that you are entirely serious.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#179

Post by xg15 » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:10 PM UTC

javajosh wrote: post #158

xg15 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends what the goals of the movements are. Most feminist discussions I've seen acknowledge that "the partriarchy hurts men as well". So highlighting issues like being discriminated as a male single parent or stay-at-home dad would probably find support in feminist spaces: Dealing with them shares the same vision as feminism does, just from the perspective of men instead of women. In contrast, many spaces that are b…

>, many spaces that are branded as "men's rights" today seem... That's the thing, that's the branding . The left (with Tucker Carlson's help) managed to get everyone to think of a man tanning his balls with any mention of men's rights. This is a major coup for leftist feminists, and a major loss for human rights. Men's rights are human rights. They are father's rights. They are worker rights. It means equal protectio…

> Men's rights are human rights. They are father's rights. They are worker rights. It means equal protection under the law, protection from rape and violence, protection from discrimination and threats. These are basic human rights that should be afforded to everyone. This should not be a zero-sum game: to give one group rights you should not take them away from another group! There are plenty of rights to go around and they won't run out.

Fully agreed here, I'm just doubting that the resistance against that really comes from the left - my impression is that it more comes from the right (or maybe press outlets who have rebranded to look "woke" on the surface but still promote mostly traditional views).

E.g., I haven't yet seen a feminist sub on reddit excuse a female rapist or deny that a male rape victim is a victim. Though I have read articles that have done exactly that.

Some examples of feminist discussion of men's issues from Reddit:

- https://www.reddit.com/r/AskFeminists/comments/z083j5/the_gu... While the OP is dismissive, the discussion itself is far more nuanced.

- https://www.reddit.com/r/WitchesVsPatriarchy/comments/zz535i...

- https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/z7rsv1/mens_...

Also, I like subreddits like r/menslib which try to provide "non-tate/peterson" communities for men's issues - often arguing exactly like you did.

Re: Men Without Work (2016)

#180

Post by s1artibartfast » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:12 PM UTC

TylerLives wrote: post #168

goldenchrome wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re NEETs. Likely live with their parents. May sell odd things here and there to make a buck. Likely invested in cryptos which until recently was enough to get by. Often getting some government gibs like unemployment or disability benefits. American society doesn’t know how to use low skilled men so we keep ‘em fed and put them to the side.

>American society doesn’t know how to use low skilled men What's the solution though? I can think of 3: 1) Bullshit jobs (i.e. fake jobs or real jobs that exist only to support fake jobs. This is the current answer) 2) Universal Basic Income - Doesn't solve the problem of giving people meaningful work, but gives them some freedom to discover/create their own solutions 3) Artificially making life more difficult - For…

Blue collar opportunities abound in the trades, where skills can be acquired on the job. Welding, wiring, plumbing, and construction.

However, these jobs are viewed as harder and less attractive than white collar work and some people balk at them.