Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

robkhenderson.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 600 posts

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

#371

Post by squigz »

anal_reactor wrote: post #356
squigz wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Do you really believe pursuing a relationship is the only real goal you can work toward? Yes, and I'm tired of pretending it isn't. I'm sorry I'm a human, not some higher being that exists above natural constraints of biological brain that spent millions of years evolving around the concepts of "be a member of a tribe" and "have a family". My tribe will fire me the second I stop being useful to them by the way, so…

Hmm. Well, this might be the first time I've been described as "some higher being", so... thanks for that.

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

#372

Post by anal_reactor »

squigz wrote: post #371
anal_reactor wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you really believe pursuing a relationship is the only real goal you can work toward? Yes, and I'm tired of pretending it isn't. I'm sorry I'm a human, not some higher being that exists above natural constraints of biological brain that spent millions of years evolving around the concepts of "be a member of a tribe" and "have a family". My tribe will fire me the second I stop being useful to them by the way, so…

Hmm. Well, this might be the first time I've been described as "some higher being", so... thanks for that.

You're welcome

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

#373

Post by PessimalDecimal »

semiquaver wrote: post #188
PessimalDecimal wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US is addicted to cheap immigrant labor for a huge number of jobs that Americans largely aren’t willing so do. Maybe more like "business owners are 'addicted' to paying cheaper wages that only immigrants from poor countries are willing to do at the offered rate."

For better or worse, US consumers are addicted to the low prices those low wages enable. Just look at how upset people are at the relatively modest inflation of the past four years. Thats nothing compared to the shock that ending immigration would create. Since we live in a democracy, such a plan would be swiftly reversed because of the pain it would cause.

Immigration into the US was curtailed in the 1920s and then reopened in 1965. This period was one of relative wealth for the middle class. Since the late 60s to early 70s, the middle class has suffered an ever-decreasing quality of life. It doesn't seem like a foregone conclusion that reducing immigration will necessarily lead to a decrease in quality of life. Increase in the cost of some items (the ones whose price hinges on cheap immigrant labor) would be met by increase in wages, especially for people in the lower socio-economic rungs.

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

#374

Post by mrguyorama »

tomcar288 wrote: post #301
welshwelsh wrote: post #148

What I took away from this article is that many low-income men have no real interest in being fathers or raising children. Yet, they tend to produce children anyway. We should focus on making birth control more accessible, instead of trying to make people take responsibility for raising children they obviously don't want. That guy who spends all his money on weed and booze while his kids go hungry? He should have got…

perhaps some guys have kids because their wives/girlfriends required them to do so.

No woman can "require" a man to have a child.

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

#375

Post by codr7 »

Doches wrote: post #229
nikanj wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> Being emotionally available, participating in chores, providing a comfortable lifestyle while not working all the time, being reasonably well-read and good conversationalist, etc. I...honestly cannot tell if this is meant ironically. Those things seem like table stakes for being an adult. It's not "expecting more of them" to simply expect people to...grow up, and help care for the other people in their lives. You w…

Pretending there is no difference between men and women is a total dead end.

Emotions and social games are a lot trickier to navigate for men, who didn't have umpteen years of evolution to practice.

In a lot of ways, we're expecting men to be more like women, and women more like men, while hating each other for it. Divide and conquer, the oldest game in the book.

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

#376

Post by codr7 »

squigz wrote: post #324
nikanj wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The problem is two wrongs is worse than one; you're never going to solve discrimination against one group by discriminating against another, for example.

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

#377

Post by bckr »

floatrock wrote: post #112
bckr wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider also the green revolution which enabled more calories to be grown per hectare. I don’t know if it takes less water and nutrients, though.

The Haber–Bosch process that powered the green revolution is merely a way of converting fuel into heat into fertilizer. Calories per hectare is one way of measuring food systems, and a great way when we assume fuel inputs are infinite, inexhaustible, and cheap. Calories per unit of inputs is another way.

The green revolution was not only a result of the Haber-Bosch process, although that's an aspect I wasn't thinking about.

Hybridization of crop plants increased the calories per hectare per year produced. Again, I don't know if the plants were actually producing more edible nutrients per pound of fertilizer.

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

#378

Post by mrguyorama »

mock-possum wrote: post #305
motohagiography wrote: post #67

simply, when a boy is dependent on his mother's approval for a sense of self it's all the justification he needs, and there is almost no increasingly-terrible situation in which a mother will not love her son. the worse his life, the more he depends on her, the less abandoned she is. it's the definition of a co-dependent cycle. Maybe he replaces her or shares that role with other women, but he ends up in the same cyc…

This comes off as incredibly preachy about gender roles.

It is frankly just Freudian horseshit.

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

#379

Post by pwthornton »

Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #347
pwthornton wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of men, particularly less educated men, have bizarre beliefs that vasectomies harm sexual performance or make them less of men. I saw the other day a person asking on the biohacking Reddit if a vasectomy would harm testosterone levels. Asking poorly educated, poorly read, and low-skilled men to make highly informed decisions is going to be a losing battle. I'm willing to bet the rates of vasectomy are highly co…

There are chances for chronic pain though. A few people on HN said they wouldn't have done that if they knew what would happen

Yes. I had pain for a while. Mine was not a quick recovery, and I now sleep with a body pillow between my knees (although my back and hips like this). I do a lot of cycling, so I am sure that is part of the issue.

Overall, I would recommend it. My wife and I didn't want to risk having more kids.

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

#380

Post by squigz »

codr7 wrote: post #376
squigz wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you not noticed how much more we expect from men as partners? What, basically what we've expected of women for many years?

The problem is two wrongs is worse than one; you're never going to solve discrimination against one group by discriminating against another, for example.

What discrimination of which groups are we talking about?
Post reply on HN