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No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

robkhenderson.substack.com

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Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#991

Post by rsanek »

engineeringwoke wrote: post #782
the_only_law wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then I can absorb it uncritically and regurgitate the conclusions to people without thinking about the evidence that lead me to the conclusions You forgot the part where I then accuse you of being the one blinded by ideology and bias.

As stated elsewhere in the thread, northern Europe bucks this "trend" that the author sees. The nuclear family is as weak as it has ever been, christianity and its ideals are an afterthought, and people have never been happier.

> people have never been happier

I always have trouble with this assertion. How do we actually know this? Do we feel that the surveys that are being given can even accurately measure happiness, and that the responses are comparable over time? It feels these questions are difficult to definitively answer, but I see all the time the tendency to reach for references to the World Happiness Report as if it should be taken automatically as an accurate measurement.

As far as I know, we don't even have measurements going back that far -- the earliest I've generally been able to find is from the mid/late 1900s. I think it's a bold statement to say people are the happiest ever right now.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#992

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

Ensorceled wrote: post #976
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you're not connecting with the US "left" (probably not a coincidence). The Nation is both the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the US (founded in 1865) and consistently represents different parts of the US left. Jacobin is another good example. It is true that if you watch network or cable TV from the US, you will not find the actual left represented, other than perhaps Bernie Sanders. What they…

> Then you're not connecting with the US "left" (probably not a coincidence). Interesting assumption. I'm far to the left of most Canadians, let alone Americans. > It is true that if you watch network or cable TV from the US, you will not find the actual left represented, other than perhaps Bernie Sanders. That was my point, albeit poorly expressed; very few actual leftist thinkers get any kind of mainstream exposure…

If you had said "US people", I'd have agreed with you (at least to a greater extent". But I took "US thinkers" to be a subset of "US people", differentiated by ... well, thinking :) This is not meant to be patronizing - a lot of people just don't think much about politics, policy, philosophy, ethics, for whatever reason.

However if someone is in that subset that does, the chances are much better that they are aware of left-ish ideas.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#993

Post by slickrick216 »

gilbetron wrote: post #172
slickrick216 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you be banned for this. People are different?

By my reading, he is saying that it isn't about socioeconomic status, but the race of the person that is causing things. Aka, simple racism.

Fair enough

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#994

Post by Shocka1 »

dash2 wrote: post #936
philosopher1234 wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you could share this evidence instead of sharing an anonymous assertion

Sure. I'll also show you how, so you could do this yourself in future. I googled "stability of cohabiting couples". This led me to Wikipedia [1]. From there I hit the 2002 CDC report "Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the United States" [2]. That provides the following statistic: "The probability of a first marriage ending in separation or divorce within 5 years is 20 percent, but the probability of…

It's puzzling to me that you are getting downvoted instead of responses when it seems like your comment follows the whole progressive comment Hacker News thing... Or whatever it is they are going for this week.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#995

Post by taylorius »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #398
taylorius wrote: post #112

I think these "chattering classes" overestimate their influence on how young people grow up. Their position papers and articles in the Atlantic are nothing compared to the tidal wave of media from Youtube, Tiktok, Hollywood etc. And those media engines prize the quick dopamine hit above all else - criminals, gangsters, hustlers - anything but a hard working family man.

Social media also encourages people to present a highly exaggerated and curated, if not outright fabricated, view of their lives to the world. Others in their networks then compare this to their actual lives and feel inadequate.

I wonder if people's fabricated online lives actually become real to them. The brain is capable of all manner of reality distortions. Perhaps such instagram fakery becomes a sort of virtual reality for these people.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#996

Post by Handytinge »

karpierz wrote: post #108
d23 wrote: post #44

Do people find this stuff compelling? Rank speculation and confident assertion with minimal substantive backing? I’d find this statement equally compelling (which is to say, not at all): > Since we stopped using horses as a primary means of transportation, men’s sense of self worth has diminished. Riding a horse carried a lot of high status connotations: drive, masculinity, towering above the land, and man’s dominati…

It's very compelling when it lines up with my worldview in a way that makes me feel validated. Then I can absorb it uncritically and regurgitate the conclusions to people without thinking about the evidence that lead me to the conclusions. Unfortunately, I'm not a WASP so your 'horse theory' doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

What is a WASP in this context?

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#997

Post by ppqqrr »

Handytinge wrote: post #996
karpierz wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very compelling when it lines up with my worldview in a way that makes me feel validated. Then I can absorb it uncritically and regurgitate the conclusions to people without thinking about the evidence that lead me to the conclusions. Unfortunately, I'm not a WASP so your 'horse theory' doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

What is a WASP in this context?

White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#998

Post by hycaria »

motohagiography wrote: post #877
d23 wrote: post #44

Do people find this stuff compelling? Rank speculation and confident assertion with minimal substantive backing? I’d find this statement equally compelling (which is to say, not at all): > Since we stopped using horses as a primary means of transportation, men’s sense of self worth has diminished. Riding a horse carried a lot of high status connotations: drive, masculinity, towering above the land, and man’s dominati…

Triggered my HN alert on horses. I ride seriously more days than not. It's a huge and rich topic, but short version is - there were no kings without horsemen. It's been the training for officer class for milennia because it uniquely inculcates a fearlessness and physicality and magnanimity that really does elevate and improve men by developing qualities that are transferrable to other beings in nature. There are men,…

Super interesting take! I would love to learn more about it (as as fellow rider).

Re: No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing

#999

Post by t-3 »

fwip wrote: post #822
rayiner wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Poverty isn’t the cause of crime. People were objectively poorer in the 1950s, even in the lower classes, and people in developing countries are much poorer than even poor Americans.

Absolute income (whether measured in dollars or purchasing power) means very little when compared across time periods or countries. Poverty has never been about your absolute buying power. It is relative to the society you exist in. You will find, by any objective measure, that the wealth disparity in the US is nearly as high as it has ever been (only exceeded by the Great Depression). These same objective measures w…

> Stealing a week's worth of groceries can mean years in prison.

Not even close to accurate, unless you're running off with a cartful of steaks, which might push you into criminal territory. Most shoplifting is not even a misdemeanor, just a civil infractions. Criminal charges require hundreds or thousands of dollars and usually multiple offenses to get more serious than probation.

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