Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home • Hacker News Board

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#611

Post by username90 » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 2:08 AM UTC

MSM wrote: post #602

username90 wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most kids spends their first 15 years mostly surrounded by women. Their doctors, their kinder garden teachers, their school teachers etc. Almost every authority figure is a woman there. If those boys have problem I feel it is ok to say that it is mostly those grownups fault, and they happen to be mostly women.

The only way that you can be surrounded by women for your entire upbringing is if you don't engage in sports. Sports are typically hours per day. Coaches are absolute authority figures, and there are very few female coaches. I can't think of any men that never played sports but are somehow punished for being "so masculine"

As far as I know boys playing sports do far better than those who don't, so this you'd conclude that adding grown men to their lives helps them and that "toxic-masculinity" isn't really the main issue boys have.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#612

Post by grammarnazzzi » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 2:12 AM UTC

random314 wrote: post #568

JoeyBananas wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I completely reject everything that you are saying. A grown man (or woman) who is dependent on their parents at that level has very serious problems because they are the equivalents of obese domestic dogs in a world full of wolves. Left to their own devices, they would have nothing. A person who does nothing with their life when they could be doing something is really a narcissist. They take it for granted that other…

How do you know they are failures, if they are happy with their situation.

Not leading a meaningful life inevitably leads to depression.

That's not to say that a very small few people may somehow find meaning exclusively playing video games. However most people will eventually suffer from lack of self-esteam, low status and shame.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#613

Post by stemlord » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 2:14 AM UTC

JoeyBananas wrote: post #585

stemlord wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>A person who does nothing with their life when they could be doing something is really a narcissist. I spent a mere year after college living with my parents, a very long and sad year, wondering if this was going to be the rest of my life. My next real job came somewhat out of sheer luck and I'm thankful for it because I could totally see myself having given up, still back there to this day, still having no idea how…

I am talking about people who are orders of magnitude less motivated than you and do nothing to improve their situation. These people probably never went to college or dropped out just to stay home and play video games. In your case, working a low paying job as a college graduate is actually highly virtuous. Some college grads would rather do nothing because they think they are hot shit.

I mean, how much of motivation comes from one's environment/upbringing... I have a strong sense that the vast majority of them thought they just didnt have opportunities to begin with, leading later to the deduction that "the game is rigged" and were destined to wage-slavery anyway. Thus no reason to motivate themselves to contribute

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#614

Post by strken » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 2:16 AM UTC

deadite wrote: post #532

>The fact that men don't tend to be a socially adept doesn't help. Men are socially adept in their society and a society of their peers. Just not in this one which seeks to break them down and punishes them for not being women.

This is a bit too reductive. Men have a wider and flatter curve of outcomes than women. The ones who are doing really well are winning the Fields Medal and becoming C-suite executives; the ones who are struggling drop out of higher education, move back in with their parents, or get sent to jail.

A lot of the gender wars happen because what's true for Jeff Bezos is not true for the guy who spraypainted "Let Them Eat Fent[anyl]" around Civic Centre in SF, and the same traits that are rewarded in directed male CEOs are punished in directionless male fast food workers.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#615

Post by mbrodersen » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 2:16 AM UTC

Read “The Coddling of the American Mind”. It pretty much nails what is going on.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#616

Post by wearywanderer » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 2:17 AM UTC

MSM wrote: post #602

username90 wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most kids spends their first 15 years mostly surrounded by women. Their doctors, their kinder garden teachers, their school teachers etc. Almost every authority figure is a woman there. If those boys have problem I feel it is ok to say that it is mostly those grownups fault, and they happen to be mostly women.

The only way that you can be surrounded by women for your entire upbringing is if you don't engage in sports. Sports are typically hours per day. Coaches are absolute authority figures, and there are very few female coaches. I can't think of any men that never played sports but are somehow punished for being "so masculine"

Strange implication. My swim coach was a woman and that wasn't unusual, many of the teams we competed against were also coached by women.

She was a very good coach too; she was also the one who taught me to swim about 10 years earlier.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#617

Post by hardwaregeek » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 2:18 AM UTC

david-gpu wrote: post #263

hardwaregeek wrote: post #223

Video game addiction is a real problem. I spent my freshman year of college rooming with man-children who played video games non-stop. They didn't explore the city, they didn't meet new people, they just played video games in the dark, screaming into their headsets and eating their takeout at their desk. People can certainly have a healthy, fruitful relationship to video games but since then I haven't felt the need t…

Not a psychologist, but I would guess that playing games at all times is more a symptom than a cause. A symptom of depression? A coping mechanism for chronic anxiety? A happy well adjusted person does not try so hard to escape reality or responsibilities. Demeaning them by calling them man-children is not going to help them in the slightest.

I understand that addiction is borne out of mental illness, feelings of inadequacy, etc., but it’s really hard for me to be sympathetic when I had to go to sleep to them pathetically screaming like little children into their headsets for a year

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#618

Post by BeFlatXIII » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 2:18 AM UTC

GloriousKoji wrote: post #507

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a 26 year old finishing up a Comp Sci degree, I'm in a similar camp. I mean I'd rate myself as a 5-6 straight up average. I get matches and have gone on several dates. What I've noticed is most men don't do profiles right at all. They show themselves off in what they do, not what's attractive. Also nobody every acknowledges that selfies are bad. I mean these are just little tips I've learned honing a profile over…

> They show themselves off in what they do, not what's attractive. Can you elaborate on that? I thought the general advice is to show off what you do because you hope to find someone who also enjoys the same.

…but physical attractiveness is required to be curious if they have compatible interests and life goals in the first place. To continue the dating as job interview metaphor, it’s often the case that the skills you need on the job and the skills you need to get hired are often disjoint sets.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#619

Post by smoldesu » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 2:18 AM UTC

deadite wrote: post #532

>The fact that men don't tend to be a socially adept doesn't help. Men are socially adept in their society and a society of their peers. Just not in this one which seeks to break them down and punishes them for not being women.

> Men are socially adept in their society and a society of their peers.

This is the same mentality that lead to the oppression of women.

Re: Fewer young men are in the labor force, more are living at home

#620

Post by BeFlatXIII » Sat, Jun 12, 2021, 2:20 AM UTC

tristor wrote: post #305

This thread is full of people talking about cultural, societal, and economic factors that may influence this outcome. I've yet to see anyone mention the factor that I wish we more thoroughly investigated: health. This has been discussed in some articles at length, but we still haven't identified primary causes, but testosterone levels are falling in men (at a given age) at a pretty steady pace year over year. This is…

> despite having marketable and useful skillsets that would provide them gainful employment. Without exception, every person I know like this suffers from mental health issues, predominantly anxiety

Alternate hypothesis to low T: it’s the rituals of job interviews that keep them unemployable. As you said, these guys have skills to do the work: the problem is in connecting these men to the jobs in the first place.