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The data are clear: The boys are not all right

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Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women as an "interest group" have been incredible at PR this last century. Men, on the other hand, have yet to realize that they can't coast on the existing historic momentum and have to start speaking up. It doesn't help that folks who attempt to represent men's rights are instantly smeared as either pathetic incel losers, or as alt-right oppressor misogynists. There's no in-between that I'm aware of. From what I ca…

Doesn't Jordan Peterson occupy that niche?

He does, but he's painted as some awful far-right figure head for daring to mention mens issues and protesting legally compelled speech.

Anyone who takes the time to listen to what he has to say knows his views are actually quite reasonable and mild.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good comment. In addition addition to a very complex dividing line between toxic and healthy, there is the larger problem of creating phrases of the form "toxic X" or "healthy X" where X is an identity. There is no part of our culture where X is allowed to have the value of "blackness" or "gayness" or "femininity". The wording itself reduces the entire issue of problematic human behavior to the mechanical act of deco…

> There is no part of our culture where X is allowed to have the value of "blackness" or "gayness" or "femininity". I don't think this is as true as you claim. While the word toxic isn't used, black culture and to a lesser extent gay culture are often described as toxic or harmful, either to those groups or to society more generally. This is even more true if you look at, e.g. transness, where an article about how it…

I overstated that claim. I cannot really claim anything about "all of our culture". I'm speaking purely about my real-world experience, which is informed by social media, mainstream media, the family court part of the criminal "justice" system, corporate speech codes, and specific stories of how university students have utterly destroyed the careers of professors on little or no pretext.

I suspect that the good-hearted members of any community, however that is defined, are generally more against woke/cancel culture than for it, since it dehumanizes everyone. So, yeah, your assertion is totally compatible with this state of affairs.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#733
post #724

> Many boys are thus often growing up raised by single mothers, the share more than doubling between 1980 and 2019, from 18 percent to 40 percent. The study he sites at https://www.statista.com/statistics/276025/us-percentage-of-... is titled "Percentage of births to unmarried women in the United States from 1980 to 2019" I think it's quite dishonest to present this data as "2/5 men are raised without a father." I si…

Instead of stating "I dont believe that" how about you post some data to the contrary?

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#734
post #724

> Many boys are thus often growing up raised by single mothers, the share more than doubling between 1980 and 2019, from 18 percent to 40 percent. The study he sites at https://www.statista.com/statistics/276025/us-percentage-of-... is titled "Percentage of births to unmarried women in the United States from 1980 to 2019" I think it's quite dishonest to present this data as "2/5 men are raised without a father." I si…

I think they misinterpreted the statictics which they linked. According to a https://www.census.gov/newsroom/stories/single-parent-day.ht... it is 23%, assuming that the share between boys and girls is the same, which is still a lot but not 40%.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The selection process is on Tinder, not the maternity ward, and the bar is brutally high there for men. I’ve been seeing this exact trope repeated more and more on HN lately: Some vague assertion that Tinder is the only place for matchmaking and that only a tiny number of men are getting all of the matches. It’s an objectively ridiculous claim for anyone who has experience in the real world where, yes, even “normal…

Genuinely asking, roughly how old are you? I'm in my early-mid twenties and of the ~100 people I keep in touch with my age range from high school, there has been one child born (by accident if the rumors are true) and zero marriages. Of the dozen or so people I keep in regular contact with I've gathered that this is not for lack of trying, either. Obviously there is bias here as this is all anecdotal, but I'm very cu…

Mid-20s is nothing, especially if your peer group is college educated. My wife and I married at 25 a bit over 20 years ago. Even at that time, we were the first of our friends group to marry. We had our first child right about the time I turned 30. We were only the 2nd of our peer group to have a child. Today, all of our friends from back then are married (a few divorced) with kids.

The trend has been only towards waiting longer in the 20+ years since we were ahead of the curve.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#736
post #679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget the incel subculture, media - traditional, social, or otherwise has been feeding us that for decades as well. If you're not thin and "beautiful", your romantic prospects are zero so why even try. Admittedly, it's also partially one's own fault for buying into it, but being fed a continual stream of the best looking people from a young age seriously alters one's perspective. I spent my entire teenage and young…

Please don't take anything I wrote as an attempt to dissuade you from what sounds like a good idea. As others have pointed out, perhaps a lot depends on just how "overweight" one is. Also, do it for yourself -- the rest is incidental. I'm 6'3"; was 190 lbs at age 19 (university); was 210 pounds at age 21 (could afford to eat out for lunch); was 245 lb at age 40 (depressed + about to be divorced); now back to 220-230…

> I'm 6'3"

> There's hope.

You need to make more friends with people who are down bad.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#737
It's strange to me that most of the comments here seem to be focused on gender relations rather than what the article was talking about - educational and occupational attainment. I don't think romantic aspirations have anything to do with why young men are not achieving. Rather, we have grown up in a fearful and repressive society, with 9/11 and the wars, 2008, Snowden, and now Covid. Many have grown up being drugged and told they are broken for behavior that was considered normal once. The broken economy that rewards only capital and resigns the rest to drudgery offers no incentive to participate or care. On top of all this, we are still expected to be "men" and never complain, never mention a feeling that isn't lust or grand ambition, and never show weakness. Faced with all this, why not drop out and find refuge in a bottle, pipe, or needle?

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#738

My observation is that we are going to have a radical rebalancing of who reproduces and who doesn’t. Lot of men and women who are generally not too motivated to seek out a companion, lose weight, put in the work to make it happen just…won’t pass on genetics. Children are a lot of work and energy. I’m highly introverted and high earning. My wife was the aggressor in my case. She pretty much made it all happen. I think…

Birth control has created favor for less masculine men. When women are ovulating, they are statistically more likely to select men with higher testosterone levels and of course the physical qualities that go along with that (bigger/more muscular, stronger jawline, more aggressive, etc...).

Let me try rephrasing that for you.

When women are horny, they are statistically more likely to select men based on appearance.

"When horny, men are statistically more likely to select women with big tits" is banal and adds nothing to the conversation. I don't understand why these references to ovulation get a pass.

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good comment. In addition addition to a very complex dividing line between toxic and healthy, there is the larger problem of creating phrases of the form "toxic X" or "healthy X" where X is an identity. There is no part of our culture where X is allowed to have the value of "blackness" or "gayness" or "femininity". The wording itself reduces the entire issue of problematic human behavior to the mechanical act of deco…

> There is no part of our culture where X is allowed to have the value of "blackness" or "gayness" or "femininity". I don't think this is as true as you claim. While the word toxic isn't used, black culture and to a lesser extent gay culture are often described as toxic or harmful, either to those groups or to society more generally. This is even more true if you look at, e.g. transness, where an article about how it…

I haven't heard about the NYT article. Do you have a link?

Re: The data are clear: The boys are not all right

#740

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You prove my point. You won't find many atheists (if any) that will take Jesus as in any shape or form a historical person. These are two different worlds. Atheists don't derive their morals from these stories, that's the difference. That there is some superficial overlap (a tree? presents?) doesn't allow you to claim the morality of atheists as religion-derived. That's ludicrous. It's like saying the local butcher t…

> You won't find many atheists (if any) that will take Jesus as in any shape or form a historical person. Raises hand: Atheist here who thinks that a historical Jesus is at least plausible. Obviously not a son of god, though, that would have been embellishment by later generations.

Jesus definitely existed as a person, we have records from the time mentioning him
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