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Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

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Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#211

Post by jokoon »

jelliclesfarm wrote: post #208
jokoon wrote: post #2

I've started some treatment recently, and for some reason I immediately started dating and looking for mates again. I quickly realized how difficult it is. You can't find women unless you have a job, while women have made outstanding progress in education and the workforce, and for some reason they have a hard time dating people who have a less comfortable situation than themselves. I don't want to ride the whole men…

Evolutionarily speaking here: Pregnancy and child rearing is expensive for females (of any species). Men have a far greater store of sperm than females who have limited eggs available during her reproductive time window. This means that a male can father many more offsprings than a female can in her lifetime. Even though monogamy..as a modern concept..is more prevalent, it is more often than not, serial monogamy. But…

You're very right, but

> why do they need free range men anyways?

Because people need affection and to have fun, even isolated mothers. When you start to put socio-economical criterias into your love life, some people will get frustrated. That's the whole point of tinder, so that people get out more and just spend some good time for their well being.

You said that we are wired, and this is true, so when civilized society start to meddle with this wiring, it can be a weird feeling.

Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#212

Post by jokoon »

abandonliberty wrote: post #196
jokoon wrote: post #2

I've started some treatment recently, and for some reason I immediately started dating and looking for mates again. I quickly realized how difficult it is. You can't find women unless you have a job, while women have made outstanding progress in education and the workforce, and for some reason they have a hard time dating people who have a less comfortable situation than themselves. I don't want to ride the whole men…

>have a hard time dating people who have a less comfortable situation than themselves. This may be evolutionary wired, but forget about it. That mental model has no potential to help. Effective relationships must provide value to both parties. So demonstrate value. "Comfortable situation" is one shortcut to measure value. "Great father", "good listener", "considerate", "sane", "stable" are all incredibly valuable and…

Well, a man with a less comfortable situation might have some self esteem issue that can potentially cause trouble in a relationship.

So it is not a direct cause, but it can be a cause.

> "Great father", "good listener", "considerate", "sane", "stable" are all incredibly valuable and crazy hard to measure.

Well only women can really evaluate and "feel" those qualities.

Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#213

Post by gspetr »

Kenji wrote: post #149
jimhefferon wrote: post #38

OK, warning: what's coming is a wild personal opinion based on anecdotal experience with a couple of guys. There are a couple of guys I know who fit into the category in the article. I don't believe that the solution proposed would have any effect. It just is at an impedance mismatch with the mindset, with the culture. I'll mention one guy I know, a neighbor, who fixes cars in his folks's barn, for a living. He has n…

If you stop learning, you stop growing, financially and, much worse, intellectually. People who refuse to learn have to make peace with the fact that they remain in their exact place for the rest of their lives. However, I do ask myself, how can someone who works from 5.30AM to 8PM afford to spend any time to learn?

Let me tell you how I did it.

I found a job for which I was overqualified and when I was done with the job for the day I studied for a better job.

After doing this recursively a few times I landed a well paying job with great health insurance.

It gets easier just as sailing in the ocean is easier than sailing near the coast - you don't risk running aground.

Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#214

Post by gspetr »

soneca wrote: post #13

Among other things, this man thinks there is a causality between men playing video game and not looking for work. http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2016/11/erik_hurst_on_w.htm...

Can confirm, know a guy who plays video games and is not looking for work.

Playing video games is his work.

Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#216

Post by throwaway729 »

pm90 wrote: post #203
throwaway729 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and it seemed to work fine It worked well unless you were a woman with ambitions outside of the kitchen and bedroom. In that case, it was living hell and maybe you'd get luck with a world war. Slavery worked fine too, unless you were a slave.

Please don't quote me out of context. "Everything" was not everything in society (out of context), but everything pertaining to the problem of beginning a relationship.

> pertaining to the problem of beginning a relationship

Reading your post, it's not obvious that this is what you meant.

And in any case, you are still ignoring the woman's perspective. It was entirely too common for women to enter into relationships that they had no real interest in out of social and financial necessity.

Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#217

Post by refurb »

thrownblown wrote: post #21
rudrigu wrote: post #10

"... or the wife works while the man take care of kids" Then wifey starts seeing hubby as a sexless entity --- sort of like the son she never gave birth to --- and loses attraction for him. "... it isn't a gender thing. It is a money thing" Humans spent millennia as hunter-gatherers. Men hunted, women gathered. Men protected and provided, women nurtured the children. If women provide and protection is provided by the…

In my marriage, I bring home the bacon with a small SaaS and the wife is in graduate school. We split the raising of our child 50-50. I like it just fine. She doesn't. She's admittedly jealous of how much time I spend with my son, she resents having to continue on her career path and not being able to be a stay-t-home mom. She doesn't understand why I would rather raise my son than work a real programming job. We are…

She's admittedly jealous of how much time I spend with my son

This is more common than people think. I've had male friends who either become stay at home dads or rearrange their work life to take on a majority of the childcare responsibilities.

It's interesting how often this causes conflict in a marriage.

Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#218

Post by throwaway729 »

FT_intern wrote: post #209
throwaway729 wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and it seemed to work fine It worked well unless you were a woman with ambitions outside of the kitchen and bedroom. In that case, it was living hell and maybe you'd get luck with a world war. Slavery worked fine too, unless you were a slave.

> In that case, it was living hell Not it wasn't living hell. Having professional goals was a luxury. Living hell was participating in wars, working 12 hours a day in a coal mine, etc. Experiences that mainly men had the pleasure to enjoy

> Not it wasn't living hell

The nice thing about this is that it's largely a statement of fact, not an ideological question. It's an issue we can actually evaluate using evidence.

So. Where's your evidence for this claim?

I have plenty of evidence for mine. We can go read memoirs, first-hand, and second-hand accounts from women in the 19th and early 20th century. The downsides are well-documented.

> Having professional goals was a luxury

Those well-documented downsides extend far beyond the absence of professional goals.

Financial dependence is coercive, especially when paired with lax legal protections. Lack of personal economic autonomy, enforced by culture and in many cases law, gives rise to a whole range of depressing conditions. Lack of professional ambition was only one contributor to a huge constellation of factors that made many women's lives a living hell.

> Living hell was participating in wars, working 12 hours a day in a coal mine, etc.

Of course, men also enjoyed professional positions in academics, in industry, and in government that women were cut off from.

> Experiences that mainly men had the pleasure to enjoy

What is the relevance of this observation to the current discussion?

Does doing a crappy job entitle a man to the affection or devotion of a woman? If not, then what bearing does the existence of crappy jobs have on the status of women in society?

Also, there's plenty of pain and misery to go around. No reason to turn it into a contest. And we certainly have no good reason to condition women's status in society on the total abolition of men working undesirable jobs.

Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#219

Post by jelliclesfarm »

jokoon wrote: post #211
jelliclesfarm wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolutionarily speaking here: Pregnancy and child rearing is expensive for females (of any species). Men have a far greater store of sperm than females who have limited eggs available during her reproductive time window. This means that a male can father many more offsprings than a female can in her lifetime. Even though monogamy..as a modern concept..is more prevalent, it is more often than not, serial monogamy. But…

You're very right, but > why do they need free range men anyways? Because people need affection and to have fun, even isolated mothers. When you start to put socio-economical criterias into your love life, some people will get frustrated. That's the whole point of tinder, so that people get out more and just spend some good time for their well being. You said that we are wired, and this is true, so when civilized soc…

Well..that was a pieced together free flowing thought process. I don't know..trying to grasp at creating an explanation. Truth is..I don't know. I could come up with another using only economic and political indicators rather than biological. Or sociological. Or psychological. It is an interesting statistic, nevertheless..

Re: Men not at work: Why so many men aged 25 to 54 are not working (2016)

#220

Post by jospoortvliet »

DaUR wrote: post #165
Frondo wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I'd do is this: 1) Vote for politicians who are going to create real structural change in society, e.g. Bernie, not just systems maintainers like Hillary, or rich guys who want to rip us off, like the guy who won. (And really work at a local level to enact structural systems changes!) 2) Work to change the cultural baggage around one's value being tied to one's day job. Make it sexy to be a poet, writer, singer,…

> Work to change the cultural baggage around one's value being tied to one's day job. Make it sexy to be a poet, writer, singer, househusband, whatever, derive personal/interpersonal value from something other than a career. (And again, work at a local level to make it OK not to have a big thriving career, since it's not gonna happen for a lot of folks.) I really hate (nothing personal) this "wishful-thinking" type o…

I tend to agree with this, yeah. There is plenty of room for change in how we run the economy giving everyone a chance for a good job.

For one - the working hours in the US are crazy. Cap it at 32 hours and badaboom, everyone has a job. Combined with a decent minimum wage, you'd be fine. And yes, if this would result in economic collapse, Europe would've gone to sheise a looooong time ago yet the countries rated as best to live are the ones who have executed exactly that recipe.

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