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Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

1843magazine.com

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Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#91

Post by yummyfajitas »

chongli wrote: post #70
yummyfajitas wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does a UBI prevent this? The people described in the article don't seem to want more money. They want to play video games. Giving them enough money to live off of would allow them to do exactly that while producing nothing of benefit to society. Right now, at least, some of them seem marginally productive (contractors, the cashier, etc). Utility, as a function of money, generally has a negative second derivative…

What happens when technology progresses to the point where they can't be productive at all? Where it simply costs money to give them a job. Are you okay with paying people to dig holes and fill them back up again?

I'll worry about that when it happens. We're not even close yet.

https://www.chrisstucchio.com/blog/2016/robots_didnt_take_ou...

Similarly, the average American fat person shouldn't eat 6 cheeseburgers on the theory that starvation is coming.

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#92

Post by AnthonyMouse »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #46
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing UBI prevents. A large benefit of a UBI compared to the status quo is that it reduces marginal tax rates on low income people. Right now you can get a lot of assistance if you have little to no income, but if you make a dollar you lose 90 cents in benefits. Who wants to work for 10 cents on the dollar? With a UBI you make a dollar and you keep most of it, so there is more incentive to work.

How does a UBI prevent this? The people described in the article don't seem to want more money. They want to play video games. Giving them enough money to live off of would allow them to do exactly that while producing nothing of benefit to society. Right now, at least, some of them seem marginally productive (contractors, the cashier, etc). Utility, as a function of money, generally has a negative second derivative…

If all you want is to live in a low rent area and play video games then you can already do it with existing government assistance. The change is that you don't lose the assistance by getting a job.

Work incentives for low-utility jobs are highly inefficient when people choose the makework jobs over real jobs, and work incentives for arbitrary real jobs are just a UBI with unnecessary paperwork, since you can just "work" for your friends and vice versa to do things you were going to do anyway.

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#93

Post by robertcorey »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #46
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the thing UBI prevents. A large benefit of a UBI compared to the status quo is that it reduces marginal tax rates on low income people. Right now you can get a lot of assistance if you have little to no income, but if you make a dollar you lose 90 cents in benefits. Who wants to work for 10 cents on the dollar? With a UBI you make a dollar and you keep most of it, so there is more incentive to work.

How does a UBI prevent this? The people described in the article don't seem to want more money. They want to play video games. Giving them enough money to live off of would allow them to do exactly that while producing nothing of benefit to society. Right now, at least, some of them seem marginally productive (contractors, the cashier, etc). Utility, as a function of money, generally has a negative second derivative…

Video games provide value to the Capitalist class by sedating a historically violent demographic (Unemployed Young Men), more soma anyone?

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#95

Post by pbkhrv »

On a cynical note, "young men immersed in alternate reality" is also an opportunity:

- It's a rapidly growing market

- those people will eventually need financial support systems beyond family - new forms of annuities?

- more demand for "gig economy" type jobs

- demand for jobs that can be done inside virtual realities that are better suited for humans instead of robots - this one is a stretch

- more demand for on-demand "life support" services - food, cleaning, medical, sex

This is veering into dark-ish dystopian territory, so imma stop now.

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#96

Post by 1123581321 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #29
DougN7 wrote: post #5

I think this is where UBI leads if it ever happens.

This is the thing UBI prevents. A large benefit of a UBI compared to the status quo is that it reduces marginal tax rates on low income people. Right now you can get a lot of assistance if you have little to no income, but if you make a dollar you lose 90 cents in benefits. Who wants to work for 10 cents on the dollar? With a UBI you make a dollar and you keep most of it, so there is more incentive to work.

What you're describing (low taxes as an incentive to work) is a libertarian argument for small government. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but it's the opposite of UBI which requires a per capita tax equal to the per capita basic income.

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#97

Post by TOMDM »

ocschwar wrote: post #77
autokad wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when i go to comic con, you see many women who look like they fit what the comic book would look like. most are not hard, just dont be over weight. men however, even men you clearly see they spend most of their time in the gym could never even remotely fill out many male fantasy characters.

What scares me about both settings is 1. the way comic fans freaked out about things like Marvel casting Nick Fury as a black man for the movies, and 2. Gamergate. Both cases had thousands of people freaking out about the details of their fantasy world being changed. And I'm freaking out about having to share a planet with these people.

Racist, sexist and bigoted people exist in all communities.

You have a demographic represented by mostly people who are highly active in online communities, it's entirely unsurprising that a lot of unsavory opinions are seen.

The LGBTQI community has to deal with trans-phobic people who would call themselves queer, feminists try protect their cause from those who want anything but equality, political party's have to constantly fight their own members to maintain image.

No one community will ever be free of people who hold onto what you may consider to be abhorrent opinions.

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#98

Post by sandworm101 »

dmoy wrote: post #64
sandworm101 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how many of those boomers have themselves slipped into the alternate realities of drugs and alcohol? If you are going to distract yourself, videogames are better than drinking. The remark in the OP about the father having to change a baby while playing a game is telling. That father could put his gaming on pause. A generation ago, how many fathers in similar situations were catatonic with a bottle in one hand? Ra…

I don't mean to derail because I think you have a valid point, but I believe alcoholism is still a way worse problem today. If I'm remembering correctly, it's something like the same number of people die due to alcohol every year in the US as shoot themselves death (~30k)... and that's just fatalities; if we're talking family problems it's way higher.

Alcoholism is certainly still a thing, but there is a generation of young people these days who simply aren't drinking. Some do, and do so to an excess, but something like like half of collage-educated young people just don't. It isn't religion or ideology and so they aren't shouting it from rooftops. They just don't want to drink. For me it started at university. I was riding a motorcycle to class and a job with insane hours (film/TV). Drinking wasn't a practical option. (Riding in pouring rain, on a fiday night night, after 20+ hours of class and work... I would not have survived long.) Without making any decisions either way, one day I realized I hadn't had a drink in over a year.

"The proportion of 16-24-year-olds who do not drink increased by more than 40 per cent between 2005 and 2013. Today, one in five is teetotal."

"...wet sales at student union bars have dived in the last 10-15 years."

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/featu...

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#99

Post by yummyfajitas »

Tossrock wrote: post #69
yummyfajitas wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does a UBI prevent this? The people described in the article don't seem to want more money. They want to play video games. Giving them enough money to live off of would allow them to do exactly that while producing nothing of benefit to society. Right now, at least, some of them seem marginally productive (contractors, the cashier, etc). Utility, as a function of money, generally has a negative second derivative…

Twitch seems to be an existence proof against the idea that playing video games produces nothing of benefit to society. Clearly, people playing video games has produced in excess of $1B benefit to society. "Make something people want", and all. You could argue that watching people play video games isn't a real "benefit" to society in the way that food or houses are, but I don't see it as being fundamentally different…

A small number of gamers are productive, just as a small number of artists are. Most aren't.

Re: Young men dropping out of the job market to spend time in an alternate reality

#100

Post by intrasight »

It is all about balance. I know several young adults who are smart, educated, and successful (for their age) and yet spend what for me is way too much time playing video games. But to them it is not just a game - it's another serious pursuit. And they make several to ten thousand dollars a year gaming.
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