Live data from Hacker News

A generation of American men give up on college

wsj.com

781–790 of 824 posts

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#781
post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is fully answered. Men today are no less deserving of support than anyone else. They deserve the same support that other groups have today. If you read the article you’ll see that men do not have the same support that other groups have, and proposals to provide that support are rejected on the basis of history rather than present need. The desire ‘not to help white men’ is explicitly mentioned.

yea totally changed my mind, it does sound like things just aren't fair and the other "groups" have it better while the white man "deserves" it's fair share. Should we start a group or what? Which other group should we target first to get the "support" that we need?

Your response is dripping with sarcasm. Why do you have such hatred of white men in particular?

Also, why are you making this about race? The basis of the article was about how men are not getting the support they need. Why do you keep bringing “white men” into it?

All we’re taking about is recognizing that there are support services provided to women which are not provided to men, and there is no reason that men shouldn’t also need such services.

These are simply facts stated in the article.

What have you got against men that makes you want to deny them the same services as women?

Is it your opinion that white men, or men in general are somehow less deserving than young women? Or perhaps you think young men are inherently superior to women and therefore don’t have the same needs.

It’s not clear which it is. Only you can tell us.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#782
post #541

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define 'problem' and why anybody would think the requirement was that it would magically vanish, else society does not count. Society functions THROUGH conflict and chaos. It's like brownian motion, noise in circuitry: if you're trying to define an ideology where there's no more conflict, the most direct way is to define an enemy and then rally everyone to destroy it. And that is said to work for a thousand years but…

I hope you are not talking about people. We break bones, bump our heads, or lose too much blood and we are out of commission. What you are talking about is a war-based society, a fault-tolerant system, with lots of redundancy, that runs through conflict and chaos. The last two decades were an experiment in that one.

Last two decades were a “war-based society”? Have you read any of the history of the first half of the 20th century?

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#783
post #683

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dropping out of a fancy Computer Science program that you're already in would seem like an extraordinarily bad idea Of course haha the name brand and few cool professors are keeping me at this point. But I never expected to go from the highest ranking/gpa/scores to having leaving academia even at the edge of the table. > But dropping out because you're black sounds crazy. It’s more like “if I can make X amount anyw…

Apologies if this is obvious, but if you're not getting callbacks, usually the issue is with your resume or application. If you haven't already, I would look for groups that review resumes and applications (especially groups that involve people who are already working or have experience hiring.) You could also try posting on the /r/cscareerquestions subreddit to have people critique your resume.

> usually the issue is with your resume or application

The parent commentor stated that their cohort has seen evidence of systematic rejection of their resumes. It is a well-documented fact that this happens all the time for female-sounding, black-sounding etc names and pictures.

Suggesting that "no, it's probably just some missing fine tuning on your resume" doesn't really seem like the right response here...

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#784
post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't match up with my experience as an interviewer at several FAANGs. HR typically wants their diversity numbers up badly so if you're gay, a woman, and/or black they are already incredibly inclined to hire you, as long as you pass the interviews. It's not a walk in the park, but you have this going for you and it's a big advantage imo.

There are a lot more people of color trying to break into the field than there are companies willing to hire them. There is a big difference between what they are saying and what they are implementing and I can say with absolute confidence that diversity is just lip service. FAANGs primarily recruit from other FAANGs. If none of those companies are diverse how are they going to diversify their recruitment?

Wait wait wait let's get back to how white dudes are dropping out because of woke tyranny! Nobody wants to hear about failing DEI efforts. Sure whites still dominate the workforce but it just isn't fun anymore!

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#785
post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot more people of color trying to break into the field than there are companies willing to hire them. There is a big difference between what they are saying and what they are implementing and I can say with absolute confidence that diversity is just lip service. FAANGs primarily recruit from other FAANGs. If none of those companies are diverse how are they going to diversify their recruitment?

Why attribute malice to people at these companies when it is possible that all the challenges and disadvantages minorities and women have to surpass, in the end, result in those groups not coming up at the top, with the ultimate sorting function being the hiring process? I see getting hired as the last stage in the pipeline, with the first stages being your family, then your education and then employment. The more th…

It's not offensive per ae but it is a worn-out canard that has been plied by the likes of Richard Rodriguez and apologists for segregated systems for decades. "I'm all in favor for equality but you're too late when it comes to [job applications, college admissions etc] because the damage is already done."

Truly qualified people on the margins are still getting shut out at every level, every age and stage. Mediocrity is still pushing the center ahead of everyone else. The fact that wsj/economist/HN has turned anti-woke doesn't change the facts.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your experience does not match research on the job market generally. Multiple studies show increased responses to resumes with "whitened" names. This is, of course, at odds with the white victimhood narrative that unqualified minorities are taking jobs, when it is in fact the opposite which is occurring. https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes...

You are assuming that FAANGs are representative of the general job market. The parent was referring to CS degrees specifically. Imagine you having always bought tasty tomatoes from your local farm, and someone steps in to show you studies that determined that the generally tomatoes in the US are tasteless. I'm also not arguing that tasty tomatoes are taking shelf space away from other fruit.

I explicitly said the general job market, I made no claims about the behavior of FAANGs. Indeed, I think there is little value in considering the behavior of FAANGs in a discussion of the general job market. I was responding to head off the generalizing of the white victimhood narrative which often happens in these discussions.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#787
post #781

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yea totally changed my mind, it does sound like things just aren't fair and the other "groups" have it better while the white man "deserves" it's fair share. Should we start a group or what? Which other group should we target first to get the "support" that we need?

Your response is dripping with sarcasm. Why do you have such hatred of white men in particular? Also, why are you making this about race? The basis of the article was about how men are not getting the support they need. Why do you keep bringing “white men” into it? All we’re taking about is recognizing that there are support services provided to women which are not provided to men, and there is no reason that men sho…

You are making a lot of huge jumps there, incorrectly, (except for the sarcasm, completely on point), and you asked like 5 questions.

Everyone should get support! More support! Everyone. By focusing on men, you are stating it is MORE challenging for men. It is not. Men should get more support, so should everyone, but if we are handing out bread, men should be last to receive, as our plate is the fullest. Do you really think men have it worse? I don't, being a guy is super great, much easier, and complaining about it just makes you seem like you lack perspective. Only you can tell us.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#788
post #780

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yea it's a basic situation everyone deals with, this person just thinks it pertains to males.

That doesn’t explain your reply. Are you claiming there is no difference in how society treats males vs females? Why do you assume the commenter is talking about themselves? Do you understand what masculinity is? How about toxic masculinity? Are you male?

> Do you understand what masculinity is?

This is the best question. Masculinity is just an archetype. It could have been three dudes standing around, "Hey you know, we are all strong, smart, and like to protect our families. I bet it's because we have these third legs, pretty sure that's it." And then we pass it down generations. Tell women the same BS about femininity. Letting just a few folks define what a gender represents, as if one side or the other does not share those traits. Just being human isn't as fun, I guess? Or maybe just the complexity of being undefined is too much for some folks, to know they could be contradictory, complex or different. Either way, masculinity itself is just kind of like a cult-y marketing tool. It's used to either make you feel bad or great, maybe apart of something, (that always ends well), but the people selling it, want it to define you. And if you buy into it, think there is something special about you because you pee standing up, and that makes you superior, that's toxic AF.

And yes I am straight, white, and male, with a nice haircut and could tell you the 7 day forecast everyday of the year. Would love to hear your definition on masculinity and why you treasure it's meaning so much.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#789

A lot of this is driven by narratives—A narrative that college isn’t worth it anymore. A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. And a narrative that those men aren’t wanted by society any more. I’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something. They need to feel like they’re part of society. Nothing good can come of an entire gener…

> A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. This is very perspective dependent. I’m a black college student now and every conversation with friends back home includes some mention of dropping out because it’s not for us as well. When you see people with equivalent resumes already coasting by in the job market because they could get their last names and LinkedIn photos past…

As a black person, living in Europe (Netherlands) I feel this too.

But there's more because I just started college and going to finish it.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#790

A lot of this is driven by narratives—A narrative that college isn’t worth it anymore. A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. And a narrative that those men aren’t wanted by society any more. I’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something. They need to feel like they’re part of society. Nothing good can come of an entire gener…

> A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. This is very perspective dependent. I’m a black college student now and every conversation with friends back home includes some mention of dropping out because it’s not for us as well. When you see people with equivalent resumes already coasting by in the job market because they could get their last names and LinkedIn photos past…

I can't speak to hiring practices at larger companies, but if my experience working at smaller companies is any indication I think things might be shifting. At my last job, they were focused on hiring for diversity to create a more desireable workplace and improve retention. I think this mindset is starting to become more commonplace, so you may find that you're no longer in such a bad position once you graduate.
Post reply on HN