Live data from Hacker News

No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

robkhenderson.com

321–330 of 600 posts

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#321

I think I see where he's coming from, and it makes sense to me. But where is the evidence that expectations have changed for young men? A paragraph or two with examples would be useful. It is of course a bit nebulous to try to define "expectations on young men" so I'm willing to go with some sort of essay that presents the evidence.

You can poll young women for what they require of young men to date them. Plenty of content of that on YouTube. It's not nebulous.

Maybe YT compilations of what "young women want" is not a good source of cultural information.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#322
This whole article is talking about absentee fathers, but every example is listing why the mother left or kicked out the father.

Nowhere in the article is mentioned the obvious common denominator - women are no longer utterly dependent on their husbands. People didn't stay together more often in the 50s because the couples were better, or because people were held to higher standards, it was because getting out of a terrible marriage was incredibly difficult if not impossible, and even if successful would cause immense hardship.

The article also simply takes for granted that it's a bad thing that these nuclear families do not stay together. While it's true that just directly comparing the children of single mothers to those raised by two parents the former tend to be worse off by a number of metrics, this disadvantage disappears once you normalize for the socioeconomic conditions of the mother, and indeed they are actually slightly better off.

People aren't irrationally making their lives harder, they take actions they feel will be beneficial, and it's unsurprising that they have a good idea of what would be personally beneficial. While the exact mechanism is up for debate, the leading theory is that in underprivileged communities where people tend to have children at a young age a heavy reliance on multi-generation family is more beneficial than the nuclear structure (or in other words, when you have a kid at 18, your 40 year old mother can probably provide a lot more resources and experience than a 19 year old guy).

You can't simply say that men aren't stepping up; the world has changed, mostly for the better, and as a consequence family structures are going to look different now from what they once did.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#323
post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some of the jobs he can get don’t pay enough to give him the self-respect he feels he needs, and others require him to get along with unpleasant customers and coworkers, and to maintain a submissive attitude toward the boss. Same as it always was. Or perhaps moving a factory workforce into the service industry has been degrading? (Since of course we shipped the factories overseas.)

> Same as it always was. I feel like it's an industrialization thing. Before industrialization people would farm their own land, set up their own shops etc. Sure there would be people above you, but they wouldn't and couldn't micromanage you. The peasant surely didn't have morning standups with their lord.

> farm their own land

Peasants didn't have "their own land". All land belonged to the aristocracy, and you would farm the their land.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#324
post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn. This is the first I’m hearing I wasn’t allowed to have a job AND play PS5. I’ll have to rectify this at once. What are the rising standards though? Not beating your wife?

Being emotionally available, participating in chores, providing a comfortable lifestyle while not working all the time, being reasonably well-read and good conversationalist, etc. Have you not noticed how much more we expect from men as partners? NB I’m not saying we shouldn’t expect more from them. I’m saying many are seeing the list of demands, and opting out of even trying

> Have you not noticed how much more we expect from men as partners?

What, basically what we've expected of women for many years?

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#325
A lot of this is only applicable to Western Societies. IMO this is entirely due to the breakdown of Family and Social structures in the name of so-called Freedom/Progress. When you have no Structure/Discipline imposed on you by Society/Culture your Freedom of Choices become too much to handle and you simply give up and choose nothing.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#326
post #322

This whole article is talking about absentee fathers, but every example is listing why the mother left or kicked out the father. Nowhere in the article is mentioned the obvious common denominator - women are no longer utterly dependent on their husbands. People didn't stay together more often in the 50s because the couples were better, or because people were held to higher standards, it was because getting out of a t…

> this disadvantage disappears once you normalize for the socioeconomic conditions of the mother

Link?

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#327
post #179
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also: Nobody in a village should take up 2 houses for themself. But some can, and can even take up 100 houses... so long as the other villagers are fighting amongst themselves, over whether their house should be larger than that of their neighbor. Turns out most of their problems are arguably traceable back to those people with 100+ houses each. Which would be glaringly suspicious to an outside observer. But the vill…

Instead of "house", you could also imagine a similar analogy around "amount of apples one person needs to eat to live". The sociopathic villager who went to the village's communal trees, and took way more apples than they can ever eat, while others don't have enough apples to eat, should be tossed into the lake. But the sociopathic villager tells stories in the village square, of how those villagers who are starving…

I have a better analogy. It’s the analogy of a guy who got up every morning to plant apple trees in his orchard. When the time came for harvest, he picked all of the apples and sold them to market. With his proceeds, he bought some more land from his neighbor and planted even more apple trees. The next year there were too many apples for him to pick by himself so he hired a few people to help out, and used the proceeds to expand his orchard.

There was another man in the village who never planted a tree or picked an apple. Instead he sat in his house filled with envy and resentment at the apple farmer, and made up a bunch of ridiculous stories about how the apple farmer was stealing from everyone else. And so he found all of the other villagers he could sway, and inspired envy in their hearts. And the envy and resentment and hatred grew and grew until one night, they went to the orchard and burned down all the apple trees and the man’s house while he and his family slept inside. And then they all celebrated their crime.

Of course, when no one else in the village ever planted an apple orchard ever again, there were murmurs of complaint. The town baker couldn’t bake his famous apple pies the next fall, but he knew better to complain because he didn’t want the envious mob showing up at his bakery in the middle of the night. So he kept quiet.

The housing crisis is one example, but I’m not talking about which parties have obstructed the creation of wealth in real society. I’m talking about essentials, envy and corruption more generally.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#328
Man I hate when people use the phrase “broken home” unironically. My parents divorced when I was young and I can assure the writer that both of my homes were always whole. Do you know what breaks a home? Two people who no longer want to live together being forced to cohabitate because of regressive notions of the what makes an effective family. Definitely preferred swapping weekends with each parent to having to listen to them fight while they thought I was asleep. Overall this article felt quite broad, moralizing, and assertive with very little actually substantive evidence.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#329
post #108

We expect young men to grow up and become "husband material". Due to various changes (standards for husbands rising, economic opportunity diminishing), this goal has become clearly unreachable for many. I would opt out if I was a poor young man today, and focus on enjoying the small pleasures (drinking with my buddies, playing PS5). The hill they are expected to climb is ludicrous, and I am not surprised they respond…

I'm gay and probably slightly autustic so for me the very natural goal of having a partner is indeed unreachable. The society doesn't give me any other goal to pursue, so I'm stuck just smoking weed and watching YouTube, which is depressing.

Society gives you plenty of goals to achieve. Do you really believe pursuing a relationship is the only real goal you can work toward?

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they respond by doing nothing (2022)

#330
post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm gay and probably slightly autustic so for me the very natural goal of having a partner is indeed unreachable. The society doesn't give me any other goal to pursue, so I'm stuck just smoking weed and watching YouTube, which is depressing.

Society gives you plenty of goals to achieve. Do you really believe pursuing a relationship is the only real goal you can work toward?

It's a horrible goal, too. Programming is way better than (and mututally exclusive with) being in a relationship!
Post reply on HN