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Education and Men without Work

nationalaffairs.com

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Re: Education and Men without Work

#71

Post by mythrwy »

tmux314 wrote: post #42

There's a very weird "let them eat cake" attitude in this thread which I find distressing. The study reports on the millions of working age men in the US who are essentially too depressed and face too many obstacles to search for work. Instead, they're spending their days staying inside, getting high, and playing video games. They essentially have little to no chance to pursue romantic relationships. Many of them eve…

This may be an unpopular opinion but the real issue (biologically) is that we don't need all the men. We only need a tiny percentage of men.

So how societies sometimes dealt with this excess of men was to send a good number of them off to war. Also occupations used to be much more hazardous so many more die working.

The days of bundling laggers up in a red coat and sending them off with a musket to make the queens empire a bit larger appear to be coming to a close. But in my opinion, we still haven't addressed the underlying problem evolution has left us with. I don't have a good answer either.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#72

Post by Mirioron »

tmux314 wrote: post #42

There's a very weird "let them eat cake" attitude in this thread which I find distressing. The study reports on the millions of working age men in the US who are essentially too depressed and face too many obstacles to search for work. Instead, they're spending their days staying inside, getting high, and playing video games. They essentially have little to no chance to pursue romantic relationships. Many of them eve…

I don't think people will care until the issue has become large enough that it will start impacting others in society indirectly. Eg not enough tax revenue being generated or not enough men willing to fight in a war.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#73

Post by tathougies »

didibus wrote: post #65
tathougies wrote: post #5

The article is long on detail and short on suggestions (which is understandable). However, the suggestions it does make are not obviously going to work. The men illustrated in the article do not seem incapable of work, but rather disinterested. Vocational training isn't going to fix the fact that the government benefits the article cited allows the men to stay at home playing video games all day. Most people (but esp…

It seems you speak as if you understand the underlying causes, and that really bothers me, because I see no explanation why you would, nothing to back up your assumptions, and nothing to demonstrate your causations. You don't even have anything to demonstrate correlation. So it's a very weak argument you are making. And, I'm okay playing hypothetical, but theorizing should be clear. You're theorizing and your theory…

In general, when someone states something that is not settled fact, they are stating their own opinion. Yes, I have stated my opinion on the topic as a reaction to what I read, which is I believe the purpose of hacker news.

> You're theorizing and your theory is most likely wrong, and only minimally likely to be true. Due to the fact that for any issue, there are more theories that are wrong than right, those are the starting odds of theorization.

Certainly, if one picked theories at absolute random. Random theories would be things like 'men aren't working because elephants are gray' or 'men aren't working because a new sunspot occurred' or 'men aren't working because harry potter is really a chimpanzee'. On the other hand, if theories are picked in accord with the data presented in an article on the topic, and with an understanding of human nature, as well an understanding of the limits of causation (like, realizing the color of elephants does not typically cause changes in employment), then there is a much greater likelihood of theories being correct.

I would really recommend phrasing your comments better. Aside from being absolutely ridiculous (theories that humans formulate are very rarely picked at random, and you cannot pretend to understand the probability distribution of their truth value), your very comment is predicated itself on an arbitrary theory (that humans do indeed pick theories at random from the very large, perhaps infinite set of theories). Applying your own logic, your own theory is very likely to be wrong as well.

> And now more directly addressing your partocular theory, why do you believe people would rather choose video games over a vocational activity given exposure, access, and training to both?

Because video games are fun and I would rather sit at home and play video games if the government were paying me money and my parents hadn't made me afraid of going to hell if I defraud the government. Behind every man's opinion is his own assessment of his own character. I am not a saint, and I doubt most men are.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#74

Post by xyzzyz »

gknoy wrote: post #62
xyzzyz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we're going to have to undertake a huge cultural shift and accept a large XX% of the populace just sitting around, vaping and playing video games all day I don't think most people care too much about that. Unlike communist states which forced people to work, even if the job was bullshit, this is a free country, and if someone wants to sit around doing nothing useful all day, they are perfectly welcome to do so. What…

> I don't think most people care too much about that I feel like a LOT of people care strongly about this. Almost all of our national dialogue about immigrants, taxpayer-funded healthcare, etc, is centered around how unfair it is for Other People to get Free Stuff. The idea that we could _build housing and give it to homeless people_, or just pay for everyone's basic healthcare needs (even if you could still get bett…

> The idea that we could _build housing and give it to homeless people_, or just pay for everyone's basic healthcare needs (even if you could still get better by paying more), raises the ire of a significant portion of the population here.

Does that surprise you that people who earned their own houses and their own healthcare through their own work resent the idea of skimming some of the fruits of their labor and giving them to people who didn't do so?

Look, this thread started with suggestion that "we're going to have to undertake a huge cultural shift and accept a large XX% of the populace just sitting around, vaping and playing video games all day". I don't like this bait and switch, where first I'm forced to support people who just want to live life of leisure, and when I complain about that, I get slandered by suggestions that I want to _punish_ unlucky chaps with medical bankruptcies.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#75

Post by Merrill »

Mirioron wrote: post #68
Merrill wrote: post #14

This story really needs another graph showing "NOT-IN-LABOR FORCE RATES FOR WOMEN AGES 25-54; 1965 TO 2019". See https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2016/images/hipple-fig6.png It appears that the non-participation rate for women is about twice as high as for men.

The trend is completely different for women though as is the way people view women that are not participating in the labour force.

Since the participation rate for women peaked around 2000, the participation rate for men and women both declined a few percent. The curves are essentially parallel.

The graph is from "Labor force participation: what has happened since the peak?" by the Bureau of Labor Statistics at https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2016/article/labor-force-partic...

Re: Education and Men without Work

#76

Post by commandlinefan »

Merrill wrote: post #14

This story really needs another graph showing "NOT-IN-LABOR FORCE RATES FOR WOMEN AGES 25-54; 1965 TO 2019". See https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2016/images/hipple-fig6.png It appears that the non-participation rate for women is about twice as high as for men.

But that’s not really anything new or unusual, is it? Women have always stayed home to look after children more often than men.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#77

Post by Erik816 »

scarejunba wrote: post #45
Merrill wrote: post #14

This story really needs another graph showing "NOT-IN-LABOR FORCE RATES FOR WOMEN AGES 25-54; 1965 TO 2019". See https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2016/images/hipple-fig6.png It appears that the non-participation rate for women is about twice as high as for men.

So the current prevailing theory is that the guys are getting high and playing video games? What's the current prevailing theory for the girls? Doing unformalized work that doesn't show up in the stats? Also playing games and doing drugs?

Look at the chart. There are now a lot more women in the labor force than there were in the 1940s. Back then, they were staying home with the kids. Now, women are having children later and often working (at least part time) once they have them.

Re: Education and Men without Work

#78

Post by phkahler »

tathougies wrote: post #53
rpiguy wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another person commented below what I think is brilliant insight. "In America (USA) you ARE your job; it defines you. The American Way is to be hard working and self sufficient. If you can't do that, there are tremendous psychological effects. You can't blame these men for giving up." It is absolutely true that worth and career are highly correlated here in the US. Most of us talk about work even when we aren't at wo…

Meh. The idea that Americans talk only about their job is mainly only true in the upper classes of professionals. Most Americans, the poor and lower middle class, do not talk about their jobs, because talking about being a taxi driver or walmart greeter is not as engaging as talking about being an investment banker, lawyer, or software engineer. FWIW, the same is true in Europe. Rich people define themselves by the m…

Another way to phrase that is that jobs at the lower end are not worth talking about. They're not a point of pride. Combine that with the GP notion that people use their job as part of their identity and what does that do to their self esteem?

Re: Education and Men without Work

#79

Post by L-four »

thephyber wrote: post #64
Seenso wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vocational training isn't going to fix the fact that the government benefits the article cited allows the men to stay at home playing video games all day. > Enabled by the preponderance of easily accessible government money, drugs, etc, these men... The benefits we're talking about here are disability benefits, and the intended outcome of those is that some people will be able to stay at home all day. "Fixing" this…

> “ Fixing" this problem by curtailing the benefits... Another way to address a partial fix is to decriminalize getting a job after previously being on disability. Currently that is used as evidence that there was no previous disability and can lead to prosecution for fraud and attempts to claw back those previous benefits.

It's even worse it works both ways. Trying to get a job can stop your benefits and if the job doesn't work out you'll have a hard time getting your benefits back. Better to not try.
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