A generation of American men give up on college • Hacker News Board

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#281

Post by zarkov99 » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 11:31 AM UTC

usename_Here wrote: post #273

I agree on some of the points about support structures for women that don't exist for men. I've seen it occur even at the professional level, female co-workers are reached out to, invited to groups, given networking opportunities that I would have to put loads of effort to keep up with. It's biased treatment in the now, even if it's trying to offset the errors of the past.

Its not that the support structures do not exist, after all they never did and men did fine without them, its that college is suffused with an ideology that is anti-men, anti-merit and, for the most part, useless for anything but its own self-propagation.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#282

Post by prawn » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 11:31 AM UTC

belorn wrote: post #109

pwthornton wrote: post #37

The thing that struck me right off the bat was that the lead photo of this story is of 18-year-old with a PS5 and pretty sweet setup in his bedroom. I don't have anything deep to add to this, but if you can sit at home in your childhood bedroom indefinitely playing video games and working menial jobs, maybe the allure is there.

The lead image is there to direct the reader towards a specific way of thinking, similar in way that if the article has been about prison it would be an image of black young men dealing drugs. It is a narrative and implication that if "group X" did not choose to do that then the problem that group X has would not exist. The author could as easily chosen an lead imagine of the same person in a class room with a narrat…

"The author could as easily chosen an lead imagine of the same person in a class room"

Might vary where you live, but my understanding is that the author of a piece is not usually the one picking images and writing the headline. There are some instances where the writer and photographer are the same, but that's not the case here.

It's a story about males who aren't in college, so why would they have photos of males in school? Stats about "people considering not going to college" is not as compelling as this story with stronger stats about what people are actually doing, IMO.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#283

Post by imtringued » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 11:32 AM UTC

smt88 wrote: post #129

ceilingcorner wrote: post #113

COVID has accelerated this big time. Why spend $5,000 a semester to watch a Zoom lecture from an average professor when you can open YouTube in a new tab and see a world-class professor share the same information for free? It makes no rational sense. The moment that a serious, legitimate credential system appears, every average university will disappear overnight. We'll be left with an oligarch class that attends the…

> Why spend $5,000 a semester to watch a Zoom lecture from an average professor when you can open YouTube a new tab and see a world-class professor share the same information for free? It makes no rational sense. Because there is much more possible value in college than just the education. Socializing is a huge part of it. College is a good place to learn how to make friends, date, network, etc. It's also nearly free…

The campus is closed.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#284

Post by belorn » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 11:33 AM UTC

wwweston wrote: post #174

belorn wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All pejorative has a literal interpretation that is not pejorative. The question generally lies in how it will get interpreted and what implied message it carries. In most cases there exist a non-pejorative word that can used as a substitute which does not carry the same disrespectful connotation and hostility. As the pejoration of the word occurs, the assumptions that occurs is that continued usage has the intention…

> All pejorative has a literal interpretation that is not pejorative. Even assuming that's true, it doesn't follow that every literal interpretation should be or is understood as pejorative, which leads to the question of why this one should be understood that way. Given that toxic masculinity has specific definitions and specific criticisms to offer that distinguish critically targeted behavior AND also has associat…

Pejoration is not prevented by a specific definition, and there is many examples of perfectly fine words being turned into a pejorative. As an example there is a very nice defined alternative word for happiness that was commonly used in songs which has no perfect modern substitute, and yet because of a different interpretation this word can't be used because those hearing it will interpret a disrespectful connotation and hostility.

> bullying or other forms of social violence for the purpose of establishing personal dominance or personal entertainment is part and parcel with masculinity

For those who think neither of those has anything to do with masculinity, using the word masculinity to describe it would be wrong. One could be a bit colorful to call it a poisonous use of words, ie injecting an harmful substance into the language.

A few decades ago researchers looked at how language get used in conflicts, and they had a major discover. The most effective way to enable people to attack other people is to describe other human being as being less than human. Toxic waste. Insects. Poison. Garbage. Language that dehumanizing groups of people and dehumanizing their behavior is almost a requirement in order for human on human violence.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#285

Post by apples_oranges » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 11:35 AM UTC

LightG wrote: post #235

baron816 wrote: post #63

A lot of this is driven by narratives—A narrative that college isn’t worth it anymore. A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. And a narrative that those men aren’t wanted by society any more. I’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something. They need to feel like they’re part of society. Nothing good can come of an entire gener…

"And a narrative that those men aren’t wanted by society any more." Citation needed. (Edit: I assume this is getting downvoted by men with self-esteem issues. There are ways you can work on that. Good luck).

I think your assumption is wrong. Your comment simply added no or not enough value.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#286

Post by exporectomy » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 11:35 AM UTC

notanzaiiswear wrote: post #179

frankbreetz wrote: post #10

On the other side: A stat shared at my most recent tech companies meeting, they are trying to hire more women. 5000 people applied for a single position and 15 of them were women. This was for a high paying tech job.

They left out actual subjects chosen by students in the article. Still, doesn't that story also point to a surplus of engineers?

Computer science is the 3rd most popular subject for men but 18th for women. [1]

https://www.statista.com/statistics/967826/number-bachelors-...

Women really really like to study subjects related to people - even "homeland security, law enforcement and firefighting" is more popular among women than computer science.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#287

Post by Miner49er » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 11:38 AM UTC

baron816 wrote: post #63

A lot of this is driven by narratives—A narrative that college isn’t worth it anymore. A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. And a narrative that those men aren’t wanted by society any more. I’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something. They need to feel like they’re part of society. Nothing good can come of an entire gener…

> A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them.

I doubt this has anything to do with it. What is the argument here? They hear this and believe it so they don't think they need school?

I grew up in a white, working class community, and in my experience nobody paid attention to liberals on Twitter calling them privelaged. Certainly not enough to decide not to go to college over it.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#288

Post by LightG » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 11:38 AM UTC

apples_oranges wrote: post #285

LightG wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And a narrative that those men aren’t wanted by society any more." Citation needed. (Edit: I assume this is getting downvoted by men with self-esteem issues. There are ways you can work on that. Good luck).

I think your assumption is wrong. Your comment simply added no or not enough value.

Thank you for your thoughts. Fascinating.

For your delectation and learning:

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=self%20esteem%20traini...

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#289

Post by zarkov99 » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 11:39 AM UTC

throwcommonsns wrote: post #50

Arete314159 wrote: post #42

One guy they profiled is making $20 an hour in Toledo, Ohio. If he's working full time, that's 40k a year. Zillow has a number of houses for sale in Toledo for under $40k. Like, they need some work, but a real house, under 40k. I think that guy is doing fine, he should just keep doing exactly what he's doing.

There's this unfortunately prevailing attitude that you aren't successful in America if you aren't living in New York or San Francisco. It's absolutely bonkers. There are many other great places in this country besides those two cities.

The great reshuffling that is happening in front on our eyes might very well push those not in the cognitive elite away from all those great places as well. I am seeing it happen around my area, where housing costs have shot up by 20% in one year, mostly driven by out of state arrivals. I see it in our own family's economic status which has improved several fold, thanks to the remote opportunities brought about by the pandemic. Maybe this is good, maybe it is bad, but there is a profound change coming.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#290

Post by ghaff » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 11:39 AM UTC

exporectomy wrote: post #240

WalterBright wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EE programs tend to focus on electronics, not electrical systems. But learning how house wiring works is a simple book away. But be careful - unlike electronics, house electrics can kill you. On the other hand, electricians have weird gaps in their knowledge. If I ask them to do something slightly out of the ordinary, this becomes apparent. For example, none of them understand inductive coupling, or even know what it…

Don't you have codes and license requirements for electricians and roofers? In my country, most of what makes electricianing harder than electronicsing is the rules. There are rules about how close you can put mains and low voltage wires, which your guy should have followed even if he didn't know why, rules about what parts of the house you can fix them to, or if they can be laid loosely or must be stapled to the fra…

And then you have old houses with all sorts of weird wiring and constraints and the contractor/electrician works around those and does things mostly to current code the best they can.