Idle hands are the devil's plaything...
Agreed that the post-war version of work is dated and that maybe we don't all need to get a job. But people need something meaningful to do, at the risk of mental health and other problems. So if the people in the article are all becoming artists or volunteers then great, but if they're sitting around bored it could lead to societal problems.
>The idea that every able bodied person has to work is not supposed to be the way our society functions; at least not in the last 100,000 years.
What? I was under the impression that particularly in agrarian societies, everyone who was able to work, worked. Are you saying that surpluses allowed for a large class of people to just not work at all?
> Are you saying that surpluses allowed for a large class of people to just not work at all?
Apparently this is the case today, since it's happening.
Historically, agrarian societies did require everyone to work - twice a year. During harvesting and planting, as much manpower as possible was needed. The rest of the time didn't require 40h of work 50 weeks out of the year. It left time for leisure, building, crafting, etc.
We're also not really in a traditional agrarian society today; most of the work required to create food is done by a vast minority of society using force-multiplying tools.
Most of the time that building and crafting was actually work. There is always something to do, even between planting and harvesting. Chop wood, split wood, stack wood. Fix things, knit a sweater, expand the farm, make a chair, whatever. It's all work. It's secondary to the primary and mandated work of farming, which is why a nobleman could call in the levies and go to war outside of planting or harvest season - they didn't care as much about the secondary parts - but for the average person that was also work.
Yes, we're not a traditional agrarian society, or a hunter gatherer society - that's why "the last 100,000" years was a surprise. Essentially the op was saying every able bodied person has never been required to work. That ran counter to my understanding of history.
> During harvesting and planting, as much manpower as possible was needed. The rest of the time didn't require 40h of work 50 weeks out of the year. It left time for leisure, building, crafting, etc.
Because fabric for cloth magically appears from nothing and they sew themselves. Same for bedheets and such, they fill themselves.. And candles are gift from Santa, animals dont need care and houses fix themselves. Wood is just there, without preparing and cutting it.
Yo and food also creates itself from grains, just like that. And small kids changed their own diapers and washed them.
Speaking of which, did you tried washing without washing machine and modern chemistry? It used to be huge physically demanding work.
Agrarian societies had cyclic work. Some societies could be especially arduous, but the most successful and populated areas weren't. For large chunks at a time throughout the year the farming population didn't have more than daily chores and personal projects. But of course during planting and harvesting they would work their asses off. A lot of the rest of the time was personal preference. You could make your house bigger, or you could make beer to drink, you could make crafts for fun and sell a couple, or you could just dick around.
You can see the large amount of extra time available in old religious and cultural holidays which were both numerous and often spanned many days or a week or more at a time. Huge chunks of time of the year that many modern workers wouldn't be allowed leave from work nor afford if they could.
You can also see Egyptian pyramid construction which is now thought to have been mostly (but certainly not exclusively) volunteer farm workers in the off season in exchange for booze and "luxury" services like studied dentistry services that otherwise didn't exist in most of the rest of the world yet. If they wanted they could just live off their own share of crops and dick around most of the year though. Working on the pyramids was a bonus, not a requirement, and their scale proves how many free man hours they had to "waste" on stuff like building giant stone mounds and carvings and art and other religious practices. Their success is marked by how many excess man hours people had to dick around with.
It's also the first time women have been allowed to opt out. Working most of the day is the historical norm for all able-bodied people and most not-wholly-able-bodied people.
I think women's experience has been a lot more complex. U til the 1950s they were needed to work in the home most of the time. And it's only really the last 20 years women haven't been REQUIRED to opt out of working once they got married or had kids...
If you look at women employment stats in the past, a lot more of them were employed then people generally assume. Women with small kids would work the least, but younger and older more likely to work.
There is middle class white ideal and then there is reality of people needing to eat. They did not had careers, but they needed money and only other option is stealing.
Men were emplyed more and home required a lot more work then now. But still, lower class women needed jobs.
> U til the 1950s they were needed to work in the home most of the time.
So? Working in the home is also the norm for men. Historically, the norm is that men are self-employed in agriculture and women are self-employed in textile production.
> And it's only really the last 20 years women haven't been REQUIRED to opt out of working once they got married or had kids...
Note that being a hard worker is traditionally one of the highest female virtues. They have never been required to stop working after getting married; they had to work just like everybody else.
These men are not being supported by their wives, they just don't go and form a new family.
Women in that age range are generally more educated than their male counterparts and they earn more, so this statistic makes sense. They also have trouble finding a male partner, especially because one of their requirements is that they should earn more than them.
This sounds like an impending demographics / societal disaster.
I guess if this trends continue we'll get to a point where basic necessities will all raise in price because they can't find workers until some of these men go back to work.
The way to correct this impending demographic disaster is not going to be a popular one. Ironically among women who are complaining about the lack of 'marriageable' men.
It sounds like a disaster for running pampered middle class retirements on what is effectively a pyramid scheme, but also like the closest thing we have to a chance for sustaining humanity.
> They also have trouble finding a male partner, especially because one of their requirements is that they should earn more than them.
It's not just the women's requirements: boys, at least those coming from a still somewhat traditional provider/homemaker household (and many effectively are even if she also has a well paying job) tend to be not really prepared for a role other than provider. But unless they are super conservative outliers they also don't expect to end up with a homemaker partner, at least not unless some freak accident makes them end up in trophy wife territory. They believe that women should be modern and all that, but they lack a clear idea of how they themselves would fit into the picture. Many find a way nonetheless, but others are bound for greybeard boyhood.
> The idea that every able bodied person has to work is not supposed to be the way our society functions; at least not in the last 100,000 years.
So the fruit of who's labour exactly are they entitled to then? And can I also get in on that action? I would like to get something other people made without working any more. I don't see why I as a productive member of society should get less than someone who festers in their own bodily fluids.
FTA:
> Make no mistake, though, for a young man who’s not working the couch isn’t a bed of roses. “About half of prime age men who are not in the labor force may have a serious health condition that is a barrier to working,” the late Princeton economist Alan Krueger wrote in the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity in 2017.
Does it really sound that appealing to be "entitled" to pain, high medication costs, and/or a potentially crippling drug abuse problem?
One of my close friends is a NEET because he uses a wheelchair and living in a rural town with his parents provides a floor for higher quality of life than moving to the city and trying to make it on his own (and navigate the various disability services). From what he’s told me, the kinds of jobs suggested by the unemployment and disability empowerment agencies are either hilariously irrelevant or make no logistical sense (long commutes that would require one of his parents to be a de-facto full-time chauffeur).
I haven’t spoken to him in ages. Hopefully the pandemic remote working boom has pushed things in his favor.
> “About half of prime age men who are not in the labor force may have a serious health condition that is a barrier to working,”
Not sure why what Alan Krueger thinks may or may not be the case it is relevant to this discussion. I may be sure I may be able to find many economist that may think many different things may be the case. But unfortunately for Alan Krueger here, opinions about what the data may or may not be is not the same as the actual data about what is, regardless of who's opinion it is. I would have hoped someone taught them that in highschool or university but I guess they must have not had time in their busy schedule of critical race theory.
> pain, high medication costs
Check and check, every moment I sit at a chair is just slightly less pain than every moment of standing, still manage to put in a day's work somehow.
Not sure who you represent (i.e. who "we" refers to in your message) but what you all do with your money is your choice, and I don't have any objections to whatever basis you all decide who you give your money to. But thanks for letting me know.
> I don't see why I as a productive member of society should get less than someone who festers in their own bodily fluids.
Do you get less? Because if you're working and you're making less than someone on welfare you have to realize that the solution to that should be lifting you up, not dragging them down, right? As far as I'm aware, welfare isn't exactly comfortable.
Edit: on closer look, it turns out you've been using HN primarily for ideological battle. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of which ideology they're battling for or against, because it's destructive of what this site is supposed to exist for. If you'd please not create accounts to break HN's rules with, we'd appreciate it.
I know this is bait, but I want to provide my experience as counter-example.
I went to a STEM college where anyone who graduates could quite reasonably expect to be able to build themselves a middle-class career, live comfortably, and perhaps even have some economic mobility (moving from middle-class to upper-middle, mainly...).
There weren't a lot of women there, and you would expect that what women were there would be disproportionately the kind of woman who would be interested in having a life-long career.
Just anecdotally, looking at peers who graduated with me, that is not the case. Many are married, and many have chosen to end their careers (where finances allow) to stay at home.
If anything, I would argue the main failing we've committed upon the young generation (regardless of gender) is to provide them an economic framework wherein more than a single-digit percent of wage earners can hope to raise a family on a single income.
In my experience, there are a growing number of men who wish they could be stay-at-home dads if finances permitted.
But instead, most households are dual-income out of necessity.
And beyond that, we've also demonized living with your parents pretty thoroughly, so people are hesitant to save money and get free childcare by living with their extended family.
Something else I want to mention is how poorly we've tailored the current world to making raising a family easier. Letting your kids go further than your lawn unsupervised is tantamount to child abuse now. Childcare is absurdly expensive, low-quality, low-availability (enrollment is headcount-capacity-limited in most places) and low-flexibility (many places either want your full-time enrollment or not at all. You can't just pick some days).
And we've also demonstrated that we're, as a system, willing to totally f** over parents when disasters strike. Covid has been a total disaster for dual-income families with children. I've heard it was not uncommon for it to be "lucky" a partner was laid off because otherwise they would've had to quit, without unemployment benefits, to care for kids full-time.
Anyway, my point is, we've made it really fucking inconvenient to have kids and now there's all this overly-simplistic sexist whinging from a certain segment of the population about how it's somehow all the fault of young women. It's disgusting both from a moral standpoint and in how intellectually lazy it is.
> as counter-example ... the kind of woman who would be interested in having a life-long career ... that is not the case ... men who wish they could be stay-at-home dads
You seem to be saying the same thing OP is saying: there are few women who are comfortable being the primary (or sole) breadwinners.
I'm not, your ellipses abbreviate too much. I'm seeing, among a group of people who would theoretically be predisposed to not want to stay at home, people still electing to stay at home. This contradicts the OP's glib remark that less women nowadays want to stay at home.
Here's a more nuanced view: both partners in a marriage should try both full time work and full time parenting. Then both partners will better understand the choices they make and have empathy for the other's situation.
I think you and the parent don't disagree too much, but parent was trying to be funny.
I loved that feminism gave a choice and legitimised working women - but it also broke down the family structure (+divorces and unstable families - which statistically raise less successful people) and having twice the workforce heavily depressed wages' purchasing power so that now families need two working parents to survive.
I think the result for the next generation will be a demographics crash and hopefully what comes next is not reminiscent of the Handmaid's Tale.
I would point out that non trivial amount of those dicorces were genuinly abusive relationships - physically and mentally. Or partnership where one of them despised and looked really down on each other.
It is absurd that divorce is seen as that big familly failure, but staying in violent or abusive relationship is treated as "succesfull familly".
I see this on the fringes of those within my circle of friends. I know one man in this age cohort who doesn't seem to have a job, just plays video games all the time, and I don't get it. But one thing I think about is what he has been exposed to: this is what he knows. I don't think this individual I'm speaking of was raised with anything differently.
In this same light, as I believe the two concepts are directly related: another friend of mine basically refuses to date anymore because he thinks the sort of culture of Tinder dating is a waste of time that favors women disproportionately.
I suspect all of this is primarily cultural first, and not related specifically to work, the economy, pricing of good or services like buying a home and starting a family, which would come second.
That being said, if we were just talking about young single men, well, of course they're staying at home. It makes no economic sense to move out and get an apartment. The cost of living in major metros makes renting nearly equivalent to paying a mortgage. Except no one is building affordable homes.
> I suspect all of this is primarily cultural first, and not related specifically to work, the economy, pricing of good or services like buying a home and starting a family, which would come second.
Hmmm I think you're wrong. It sounds like you've got survivorship bias, big time.
Most people want to contribute, but the economic system fucks them and makes them dependent. Examples include: the intellectual property regime and monopolistic parasitism of the knowledge commons [1], neoliberal philanthrocapitalism [2] and the completely disgusting and neocolonial division of labour under global capitalism [3].
Can you really look at the Blackrock disaster [4] (Wall Street slumlordism), or the IRS papers or the Panama Papers and tell me that the system doesn't harm people?
> Can you really look at the Blackrock disaster [4] (Wall Street slumlordism) and tell me the system doesn't harm people?
Yeah, someone could do that for any system. "A horrible thing happened somewhere" or even "this part of the market is totally screwed up" are facts about every plausible alternative. So though they may be facts about the current system, they don't tell us how to improve the situation.
You can make an argument that the problem is systemic, but having one example of a problem doesn't do anything except score rhetorical points in a game where evidence and argument don't really matter.
Curious: what effect do you think culture has? The economic plays a big role, but there’s a tendency nowadays to call the root problem for everything economic and act like cultural effects are just “holidays and religion” or other marginal effects.
The culture has changed dramatically since the 50s when these trends started. For the men, their role has gone from default “protector, provider, head of the home, in charge, theist, conservative, married young” to “equal bread winner, often oppressive, too often toxic, without innate greater purpose or role, etc”.
Obviously these are broad generalizations, but we would probably agree that men get a worse wrap now than then (even if that came at the expense of others). Does that large cultural shift have a large effect? Are men lacking purpose now and how much of the current problem men face is because of that cultural shift? The economic is important, but the cultural factors are huge too
> The economic plays a big role, but there’s a tendency nowadays to call the root problem for everything economic
As with everything on the internet (it sadly seems), there is a necessity for nuanced position. Perhaps, economic and cultural factors are playing a self-reinforcing and thus compounding effect on our society?
There are also the non-cultural and non-economic factors such as declining testosterone levels. This could have profound emergent economic and cultural implications that we have not even begun to calculate.
> Most people want to contribute, but the economic system fucks them and makes them dependent. Examples include: the intellectual property regime and monopolistic parasitism of the knowledge commons [1], neoliberal philanthrocapitalism [2] and the completely disgusting and neocolonial division of labour under global capitalism [3].
This line of thinking in my opinion is the problem. Before I start, I will admit I have survivorship bias.
The points you mentioned are problems, but in my opinion that's not an excuse. One of your points you mentioned that it's now harder than ever to buy a home because Blackrock is scooping all of them up. While I agree that it certainly makes getting a home harder. I think if anyone truly wants a home and is willing to do whatever they need to in order to get it, they can get it. Same goes for just about everything else, if you want something, and you're willing to do whatever it takes to get it, you can do it.
All the problems you mentioned are roadblocks, not showstoppers. I think these days it's easier to just make the excuse that there are all these things standing in our way thus making it impossible for us to do the things our parents did.
> I think if anyone truly wants a home and is willing to do whatever they need to in order to get it, they can get it. Same goes for just about everything else, if you want something, and you're willing to do whatever it takes to get it, you can do it.
You may be right, but people come in a normal distribution, with most being just average. To "do whatever it takes" implies a person on the extreme right of the distribution, and most people aren't there. So while it may be possible to buy a home, if it takes extreme effort to do it, most people won't.
Whereas, when I grew up in the 60's, my dad worked as a bag boy at Kroger, then a meatcutter. We had a small 3br house, 2 kids, a car, a motorcycle, a boat, insurance on all this stuff, and mom worked out of the house doing babysitting and ironing. They were still in their early 20's and got married right out of high school. We eventually had 2 cars while still in this house, around '65. Nothing even remotely like this would be possible today.
New House: $25,200.00
Average Income: $10,622.00 per year
New Car: $3,560.00
Average Rent: $150.00 per month
Tuition to Harvard University: $2,600.00 per year
Movie Ticket: $1.50 each
Gasoline: 40¢ per gallon
United States Postage Stamp: 8¢ each
Whether due to currency debasement, globalization, or overpopulation, the disparity in cost of living between the two eras is staggering.
Similar (?) items based on near top results of google searches today:
The greatest takeaway for me is that everyone is FAR worse off today and in my generation.
US nationally (today 2021) about 85K is equivalent to the cited 25K 1971 numbers. :: ~10X cost of living (edited, I unconsciously compared to the wrong number.)
Seattle is far more distorted, with housing beyond out of control (I don't know what kind of house was being looked at for the 1971 numbers, but it really doesn't matter, there's almost nothing even remotely near the national price within the region). ::
Seattle's rent is completely out of control; beyond any rational measure. No wonder neither I nor my generation can make any savings; it's all being consumed by rent seeking land owners.
Income 10600 %Income71
House 25200 237.736
Car 3600 33.962
RentYear 1800 16.981
UniYear 2600 24.528
Gas5000mi 100 0.943
Mail500invite 40 0.377
-
USA 2021 Equiv71
House 269000 113151
Car 30500 89806
RentYear 14400 84800
UniYear 26100 106408
Gas5000mi 483.33 51233
Mail500invite 290 76850
-
Seattle 2021 Equiv71
House 750000 315476
Car 30500 89806
RentYear 36000 212000
UniYear 31200 127200
Gas5000mi 533.33 56533
Mail500invite 290 76850
> the economic system [. . .] makes them dependent
The emotion of dependency seems less likely to be developed by an economic system than of culture. One might claim that it is difficult to separate one from the other. Taking a cultural or an economic point of view I can see how a hierarchical culture would see participation as zero-sum but not an economic system. An economic system by itself, capitalist pig, pinko commie, feudal manorialism, whatever, is enhanced by participation and a sense of interdependency.
> Most people want to contribute, but the economic system [...] makes them dependent.
The people being discussed here are people without jobs who have a place to live rent free. There is not an economic system holding them back from being able to find a way to contribute because their expenses are very close to $0. For all practical purposes, they have the equivalent of universal basic income. If they would like to write poetry instead of playing video games they could. If they would prefer to paint or write code, they could.
It’s sort of like when women entered the work force and built careers. They started to get married later and having kids later.
Men are now reverting to the mean a little bit. This could be a natural normalization of a situation where men were exalted as industrious, and women were literally left at home. Both extremes are bad.
One day we’ll just have two 30 year old stay-at-homes get married and not think twice about it. No expectations or judgement on ones job and aspirations, or gender specific duties. Just two genuine deadbeats.
What’s so distasteful about it? Truly nothing, but yet, why doesn’t it feel right?
> another friend of mine basically refuses to date anymore because he thinks the sort of culture of Tinder dating is a waste of time that favors women disproportionately.
My female friends (I'm male) with online dating profiles have shown me their matches and conversations, and it's bleak. They all mostly have an average profile and still receive thousands of likes/hearts/swipes and messages, but the mean amount of effort from men messaging them is zero to none.
Maybe your friend considers the situation of having fewer women on dating apps as somehow "favoring" their gender, but from what I've seen and heard, sorting through an inbox of unsolicited genital photos and copy pasta pickup artist lines is not something most women would say they enjoy spending their time doing.
If instead he's referring to apps like Bumble where the woman has to make the first move, see above for why some apps choose to operate with that model.
It's certainly believable that women don't enjoy dating apps, but I think it's difficult to make the case that it's equally hard for them (in terms of successfully getting a date) when they have thousands of matches and many men I know have none.
Thousands of matches isn’t a good thing. If you ever have the opportunity ask a female friend to show you the kind of messages they get on dating apps. They’re pretty appalling. It genuinely worries me that there are so many creeps out there. The men you know may not be getting many matches but at least the ones they get are more than likely from relatively normal people. If I had to sort through the garbage women do on dating apps I wouldn’t be on them.
He didn't say it was, he said it was preferable to having no matches.
I recall seeing the OkCupid stats once (okstats?). The numbers pretty much said that although women were getting most of the messages, they were all only responding to the same 10% of males, while most men were sending messages to almost all the women.
You've pretty much got 80% of the women competing for the top 10% of the males.
That 80% number might give a false hope to readers. In fact it's 100%, but the bottom 20% give up without trying because they correctly assess their chances.
But surely you can see how hopeless dating feels for many men when they swipe right on hundreds of women and get 0 matches? I'm not saying they aren't getting many — they're getting none (I know you just have my word on this, but trust me when I say they are not ugly or fat or anything, just nonwhite and without high paying jobs, but otherwise average-looking guys who have dated successfully in the past).
The situation isn't great on either side, but plenty of statistics show it's mostly women having sex off these apps, so clearly there is an actual imbalance.
And you can't write off the sheer hopelessness and isolation that the thought "there's not a single woman out there who would date me" induces in young men. I'm sure it's not fun for women but it is absolutely __brutal__ for many men.
Oh certainly. Their experience is that there’s a huge racial factor in how many matches they get (e.g. having an Indian name seems to be a death sentence) — I was just reporting their experience and didn’t mean to imply anything else!
If thousands of matches are not a good thing, why keep swiping? They could choose instead to talk to the matches they already have. The matches they have are already the ones they've screened for.
It's just numbers game. If you're interested in quick sex and you can send messages to dozens on women with very little effort, you do it. If just one percent signals interest, you already have a win.
Why invest more time and energy than absolutely necessary?
Women are paying a high price in the online dating world. It’s preying on their weakness the same way porn does for men.
Most women don’t want to sleep around and have a large number of partners. But tinder leads them to believe that they can find an unrealistic partner. And they get hurt by the small percentage of men that play the online dating game well.
Women need a lot more data and time to evaluate a potential partner before initiating contact.
I think a solution would be to limit the number of matches one could have at a time. This forces the user to sacrifice something (the opportunity cost of matching with someone else) to remain in contact with their match.
I have to comment that I think women who want to date go to tinder as a very last resort and don’t expect a long term relationship there.
For serious relationships we tend to go to okcupid and bumble as they are wayyy less creepy apps.
At least where I live tinder is known as the one night stand app.
Date as in quick one night stand and even then claim is pushing it. It is not the first choice place of meeting guys, especially if you look for something more long term.
Anyway, the disbalance between amount of men and women there is quite large.
My experience with Tinder was that all the women I met turned out to be more interested in hooking up than anything else. Is there an app for people who don't even really want to sleep with each other, but would prefer to just hang out and talk? I want to use that one.
What does effort mean in this context? I recall friends of mine, young women, who were having the hardest time finding a significant other were just demanding things of men that would have them selecting from a socioeconomic pool of the top 20% of the population, when they themselves were in the bottom 20%.
It was my experience that young women in general were asking for too much when I was in my early 20s. They wanted someone who had it "all together," and that's just not where most people are in their early 20s. There doesn't seem to be any appreciation anymore for the fact that young couples grow up together. Instead, people seem to think that you grow up first and establish who you are independently, then find someone else to bring into your life. But realistically, you don't finish growing before dating, and in life who you become is based on the interactions not just with your significant other, but your friends and family, too.
Lastly, all of my dating experiences online lead me to women who wanted to be "entertained." And not in the sort of "wined and dined" sense which seems obvious to me, but rather most women I came across didn't want to get to know men, they just wanted entertainment value out of the experience of dating. This was a sharp contrast from interactions with young women in real life. The dating world for both young men and women online seems to create some strange scenarios that don't play out well for anyone involved. I see this manifest the most in online dating where most men are naturally led to play pickup artist lines. I personally find it extremely off-putting. I'm not a jester.
"Take me on an adventure" was always a instant no for me. In the modern world a spouse is supposed to be a equal partner, I'm glad I found my wife who feels the same way. I don't want someone I have to drag somewhere like a suitcase.
I think this also gets to the heart of it. My general feeling was that women wanted equality but didn't want to put in any effort whatsoever, and so a lot of women I came across just seemed like bums.
I'm not saying that is what you're saying. It just made me recall my experiences.
It's a terrible thing to say, but many young women today, if judged by the same standards as men, would be considered losers. They have nothing going on in their own lives, yet have sky-high expectations of what men are supposed to provide them. And for the most part, modern dating culture lets them get away with it.
Young men reading this, don't let it get you down or make you hate women, that path leads to ruin. In my experience once you become the sort of man who chooses not to participate when someone expects more from you then they are willing to give, the sort of women who is willing to be a equal partner comes out of the woodwork. They don't want to be with a loser either.
If a young main in his 20s is dissatisfied with the dating culture and prospects, it makes some sense to just forget about dating until early 30s and instead use all of that time and freedom to focus on establishing yourself. If you can focus and put in the work to become the type of person you want to be, then you'll pick your head up at the age of 32-35 and (seemingly) suddenly a lot of those women in their 20s will want to date you. Speaking from personal experience and assuming you aren't the type who wants to start a family in your 20s.
> If a young main in his 20s is dissatisfied with the dating culture and prospects, it makes some sense to just forget about dating until early 30s and instead use all of that time and freedom to focus on establishing yourself.
This needs to be hugely caveated. If you skip dating for five to ten years, you're gonna jump back in fresh and probably fuck things up terribly the first few times. Too eager, too indifferent, too clingy, too distant, etc... you're gonna be terribly out of practice at it all.
It's a skill, like anything else it takes practice. There's altogether too much BS out there about people being "meant to be" versus people putting in the work on both sides to create something real.
"Too eager, too indifferent, too clingy, too distant, etc... you're gonna be terribly out of practice at it all."
These are generally personality traits of someone who is not well adjusted. If you are the type of person who can become professionally and personally (think friendships and any other non-sexual relationship) successful, then you'll probably be fine jumping back into the dating pool even if you've only dabbled casually for a pretty long period of time.
How you're perceived isn't always going to be the same as how you are, and people make judgements quickly. Actions only come naturally through repeated practice, barring a naturally lucky few, and dating requires a whole different set of actions than in other relationships.
You might also quite reasonably be confident in your professional and personal-friend lives, but be lacking some of that confidence in dating, since you haven't done it for years. These aren't transferable domains for a lot of people.
I was on dating sites and apps for several years before I started having any luck finding much, much less something serious, and every moment of it was valuable practice in an area that didn't come naturally to me at all. My career situation also improved throughout those years, sometimes faster than my dating skills, and I quickly learned that having a nicer car did me 0 favors while I was still uncomfortable on a date in the first place. None of that professional practice applied - was I going to talk about load balancers and HA strategies on the date?
I don't disagree and I think I should have clarified that if you're the type of young man who has trouble dating (in the sense that you find yourself to be awkward, or have mostly bad dates), and can't seem to connect with women, then do NOT do what I have suggested here. Get out there and take a lot of swings.
I've had a long string of failures after starting dating (Post covid vaccine) and just felt so incapable of being next to another person.
It's like all this time quarantined as put my dating skills back to zero (not that they were ever good). I feel so broken, like shards of glass that cuts anyone who tries to touch me.
But you have inspired to to once again glue all my broken shards together and try and try again.
> It's a skill, like anything else it takes practice.
That’s why you should never stop dating, even after you’ve met someone. You never know when you’ll break up and have to find someone else. Best to stay sharp.
As a happily married man in his late 20s, I really stress not doing this. You skip an entire small lifetime of not finding someone and growing up through your young adulthood, waiting for things to improve for you as a man (read: for women to finally come around because of divorce, settling, or their biological clock ticking) and I'd argue things at that point would be more difficult.
Because you then have established so much of who you are independent of the interactions between yourself and a who-would-be spouse, there's a greater chance that you'll have even more to disagree over.
You're only creating more difficulties for yourself. Beyond the intricacies of a crystallized person, there's a smaller dating pool, it's more difficult to get pregnant, you have a greater difficulty acquiring assets not having another person you're working together through life with.
Yes, those women in their 20s will want to date you, but if you're in your 30s, you're effectively dating a kid. They absolutely do not have the same experiences you will have at that point in time unless you did no personal growth for a decade.
I agree with you that this route probably isn't best for _most_ men, which is why I said that it makes "some" sense, but I should have clarified that it's not broadly advisable (even by someone like myself who took this route). If you aren't very comfortable with who you are by yourself, and happy with yourself, and also very focused and determined to do something quite ambitious professionally, then yes I think finding a partner to grow with and lean on is the best route.
And also as I mentioned below but just to make sure it's clear: if you aren't comfortable dating, then you should date as often as you can because it can be genuinely fun and fulfilling and lead to very positive outcomes. If you _are_ comfortable dating and do well with the opposite sex of your preference, but just aren't satisfied with what's out there or it feels forced and unenjoyable, then you _might_ benefit from focusing more on developing yourself rather than focusing on the partner search. It's a cliche but once you're truly in a good place with yourself, you tend to attract to the right people into your life.
One alternative is that they just become jaded by their failures by the time they're in their 30s. At that point it would be fairly trivial for them to give up on all of it.
If a young man is dissatisfied with the dating culture and prospects he should pickup and learn an instrument, find some other musicians and invites peoples to watch them practice/jam.
P.s. I've learn just enough bass to meet my wife !
Another caveat: they still might not want to date you. Making real human connections is just significantly more difficult for some people than it is for others, but on the plus side you are much more the person you want to be, so you can feel good about that anyway.
Nothing is perfect 100% of the time and it can take a few tries to sort out what you need or want in a relationship, along with what you are or aren't willing to tolerate.
> instead use all of that time and freedom to focus on establishing yourself. If you can focus and put in the work to become the type of person you want to be...
I go out socialising/partying less now, and am on the PC more (games, projects, etc - most of my interests are on PC). Your advice creates the people in the article!
I might get flack for saying this, but a large number of women's dating profiles just consist of "dog mom", "loves watching The Office", and something about "Jesus". It's shockingly consistent and bland, with very little to engage in conversation about.
Now I will say it's not really anyone's fault. Women looking for men probably don't see what the other women on the site's profiles look like. Likewise my profile might be a trope as well. But men do have to go out of their way to stand out to get a decent chance at a connection.
I would put forward that there is probably an interesting person behind most of those dog mom, office watcher profiles. Most people just aren't good at marketing themselves and mass media culture has made people scared or less capable of sharing how they are different from the herd (i.e. interesting).
> mass media culture has made people scared or less capable of sharing how they are different from the herd
You're right. Everyone is interesting once they open up a little.
The goal though isn't to show how you're different from the herd, it's to show that you're better than the herd, for whichever sub-herd you're signaling membership. That strategy preserves maximum choice.
I agree, I absolutely despise dating apps which seem to do well at making most people look overbearingly boring. I've heard from acquaintances that are woman that a lot of profiles of men also tend dot be very formulaic .
Something interesting I've noticed, is that trying to break that mold is considered negative. If you look at subreddits that tend to give out advice (typically to men) on dating profiles, they advise people to do things that make their profiles more generic.
I personally avoid dating apps, because I'm not attractive enough (or at least, not photogenic enough, somehow cameras almost always manage to clown me) and I'm not outwardly interesting enough to attract people by reducing myself down to a few pictures and text snippets.
> It's a terrible thing to say, but many young women today, if judged by the same standards as men, would be considered losers. They have nothing going on in their own lives, yet have sky-high expectations of what men are supposed to provide them. And for the most part, modern dating culture lets them get away with it.
"Today" is an interesting word choice. This seems like a lingering problem originating in the past, when women were entirely expected to depend on a man to provide, and were NOT expected to have stuff going on in their own life beyond being fertile and useful around the house and of good family background...?
What's the line? "Feminism is for men too"?
Men who just want hookups can keep such women's calendar filled for a while but aren't going to be really doing that providing in the long run.
But in general, the obsession with not being a loser is dangerous for everyone: not everyone will be in the top 10%, and not everyone will attract someone in the top 10%, by simple math, and yet people of both gender's are convinced that it's the other group that has the unreasonable standards...
Gaining empowerment doesn’t mean you expect less from a provider, it means you stack the two together for an even better life. At least that’s a major philosophy out there. “What’s mine is hers, what’s hers is hers.”
One school of thought says there are men on dating websites who copy-paste a message saying "hey how you doing?" to every woman they see; and that women are beset by hundreds of copy-pasted messages from men who haven't even read their profile.
This school of thought says, in order to stand out, men should carefully compose a different clever, charming message for each woman they contact, based on things the recipient mentions in their profile and suchlike.
Of course, a man sending 100 copy-pasted messages and a man sending 5 high-quality messages might be expending the same amount of effort in total but the latter is demonstrating greater effort per woman
In this context, kogepathic means more men should adopt the strategy of carefully composing messages.
You also have the problem of writing dozens and dozens of seemingly engaging and individualized messages only to get no response back. So eventually, you start putting less and less effort into each message and even start to repeat old ones. It's a sad fact of life.
When I was dating I was fortunate to have a large enough match pool to experiment with this. The result: a stupid copy-pasted throwaway line or emoji had roughly the same results as a message I put some thought into. The second category got a few more responses but in terms of conversion to an actual date there wasn't an appreciable difference.
The takeaway for me is profile pictures, physical appearance and class/status signifiers (vacations, hobbies, nice things in/around the picture) were all that mattered and if someone was sold on that all you really had to do was not get in your own way by saying something stupid.
> You also have the problem of writing dozens and dozens of seemingly engaging and individualized messages only to get no response back.
To use a property analogy: if I am not the highest offer on a house, I probably won't get it. Doesn't matter if I have a trust fund or work for minimum wage (effort put into the offer) my offer wasn't accepted.
Similarly if I'm the seller, I can decide "No, actually I don't want to sell my house to BlackRock, I'd rather sell it to this young family" and that's entirely my choice. This choice might leave money on the table, but at least I get the warm fuzzy feels inside for doing what I think is best.
What you describe sounds like you want some kind of "thank you for putting in some effort" but you decide the amount of effort to invest, the other party owes you nothing.
You're right, the ideal solution is to keep putting in the effort to be sincere and engaging. I certainly don't believe I am entitled to a response. I'm just trying to convey how demoralizing it can be to put your best foot forward so many times only for nothing to come from it. I think it's human nature to be tempted to slack when your big efforts have had so little payoff.
I assure you, women feel the same way. It's incredibly demoralizing to receive hundreds of swipes, of which the vast majority produce only a copypaste first message. Or worse, "DTF?", of which they'll see plenty.
It's hard to say which is worse: the messages that say that they haven't put any thought into you at all, or the messages that say they have exactly one thought about you -- and everybody else.
Everybody gets poor payoff percentages. You play if you think the game is worth the candle.
All day can say is I never had any problems finding a woman to talk to. It wasn't hard. There are lots of fish in that sea. All I had to do was be thoughtful, polite, and interesting.
I'm told it's different in other places but I suspect that has more to do with the men than the women.
I never found it hard to get a reply. I don't really know what I was doing right that everyone else seems to be doing wrong. I'm neither excessively handsome nor wealthy.
My suspicion is that I worked to make myself interesting, and worth conversing with. And I see a lot of comments here that betray a deep distrust of women, with a ton of stereotyping and lack of empathy. I hear tons of complaints from women about men's profiles, and it never has to do with looks or money.
I've sometimes thought of opening a dating profile consultancy. I may be completely off base, but I believe that in a lot of cases, men can do better without changing jobs or their appearance. And my first piece of free advice is that if you're blaming women, women aren't going to like you.
> My suspicion is that I worked to make myself interesting, and worth conversing with.
In what sort of ways are you “ interesting”? Genuinely curious. FWIW most advice I’ve seen regarding advice for dating profiles (particularly for guys) involves removing anything that might signify personality and to make it as formulaic as possible. Your pictures all have to be the right things, the profile description can’t be too short or too long, and can only say certain things, etc. I think on these sort of apps it’s almost seen as positive to be as basic as possible. Even I find myself suspicious of profiles that say to much or try to stand out now.
The other piece of advice I see almost always has to do with quality of pictures, which is understandable, but let’s be real, if I had the kind of life where I was happy all the time, doing cool things and taking pictures with friends, I probably wouldn’t need to be on this app ;)
I'm sure there are some women who want blank slates for men, but not the type of women I like. I like to post vacation and activity pictures, and use the text to suggest that I've got stories to share on our first date.
So many women I've met complain that they start the date with "so tell me about yourself" and get, "uh I dunno. I like to play video games." (Not that there's anything wrong with video games but at least have some stories to tell. Maybe she'll also play. Jackpot. Unless you start telling her she's not a real games.)
I do lots of things. I act, i juggle, i run marathons. The tricky part is phrasing it in a way that doesn't come off as "I'm too cool an expect you to shut up and listen."
That is of course just what works for me, and for the kind of women I like. (Talking about dating sites is a really easy topic of conversation on a first date, so I hear a lot.)
If they're telling you to be dull, maybe that works for other men with other women. But to me it sounds like a recipe for a boring date.
I try to go in with the attitude that if we do nothing more than spend a few minutes chatting nicely over coffee, it will have been fun and worth my time. That kind of attitude seems best for making myself seem worthwhile and fun, so that she wants more.
Sure, I wasn’t commenting on the preferences of women, but more of the culture of dating apps, which seem to reduce people to some photos and a few snippets of text. From what I hear women have their own crap to put up with on those platforms.
I think you're being a bit unfair. The parent comment describes a hardship, investing time, effort, and some sense of self-worth and seeing it vanish into nothing, and your response makes the parent seem entitled. "Like you want some kind of 'thank you for putting in some effort.'
If someone told you they were having a hard time buying a house and all their offers were silently rejected replying "The sellers owe you nothing" might be true, but it is beside the point.
No, that's an aberration perpetrated by software. The same problem has manifested in interviewing. Maybe you're thinking of "nobody owes you sex" instead?
If you greet a person in real life or over a call and they intentionally ignore you, they are being rude. Obviously, if you're being rude first, that's different. They can say "hey" back, or "sorry, I'm not interested" or "kind of busy right now, can we pick this up later?" There are plenty of options.
I understand that the way these apps are set up, responding like this isn't a winning strategy. Despite what the Internet would have you believe, there is a minimum social bar when there's a human on the other end of a comm channel.
This is why tinder was created, having both parties express some level of interest eliminates the need and most of the benefits of mass spamming. Granted one party could spam likes, but ranking algorithms probably take into account this behavior.
Bespoke messages based on the profile you're reading is always a winning strategy. My response rate went way up when I started doing this. The trick is to make a message that's curated enough to tell the person that you've read their profile while being short enough to not require a lot of effort to read (because their inbox is flooded)
Another thing I did that helped was hide the photos of people I was looking at while browsing.
Towards the end of my time on OkCupid (where I met my wife!), I wanted to only compose five messages per day. I did this to reduce my time on the platform. (Online dating services are masters of dark patterns and addicting behaviors.) However, even though those messages were short, since they were bespoke to the profiles I was looking at, those messages took time to write.
I found myself in this predicament where I burned too much time looking at profiles of attractive women with bland (to me) profiles. So, I thought "what if I hid the photos and focused on profiles I thought were interesting?"
Three things happened when I did that:
1. Writing short, but targeted, messages became a LOT easier because I was focusing on connecting with people I probably wanted to spend more time with,
2. Since I never "saw" who I was messaging when I wrote those messages, me never getting a response from them hurt way less (since I never met them to begin with!), and
3. When I un-hid the photos of the women who responded to me, _they were still attractive!_ As it happens, I learned that I'm attracted to smart, pretty women with personalities.
I suppose this won't work for people who want to do the nasty with as many hot people as they can find. There were, like men, smart, attractive women who didn't know how to craft an online dating profile and got filtered out from this approach.
What I do know is that my response and date rate went WAY up after hiding photos and responding to interesting profiles, and my mental health towards online dating improved significantly.
I'd wager a big part of the reason for the increased success was that you were messaging people who you were genuinely interested in, and the interest came across in your messages.
This strategy won't work anymore, because old OKCupid style "long form" profiles are gone. Modern dating profiles have the equivalent of a twitter bio worth of stuff on them now.
I doubt this is true. I almost always have send out personalised messages if possible (E.g. comment on something in their profile, something noteworthy in their fotos or something else). They just almost never respond(I would say <<5% even respond), and if they respond it's not much beyond an: "haha thank you" or something empty like that, with no follow up of any kind. It was impossible to keep any kind of conversation going no matter what I tried.
Now? I just gave up. I have better things to do then spend hundreds of hours without a single conversation going anywhere. Online dating is a useless black hole.
Putting too much effort into those messages is a trap I fell into in the past when looking for relationships on dating apps. You've seen a few pics and read a couple sentences of text they typed - you shouldn't read too much into it for your own sake, and you also don't want to look like you're too eager to jump into something way too fast.
(Looking for hookups on apps is, I imagine, an entirely different ballgame, and I have no idea what works or doesn't work there.)
This is talking about two different things, I think.
The "I want the total package" unrealistic-expectations person is prominent in both genders, even if "no fat chicks" t-shirts aren't as popular as they once were. The slob-with-hot-wife TV trope probably hasn't helped men's expectations here.
The "I'm gonna send a thousand dick pics and see who is down for a hookup" behavior, on the other hand, seems predominantly male-dominated. Even the women looking for hookups don't operate like that (you could debate chicken-and-egg here, around how they don't ever have to with all the dudes throwing themselves at them, but I'm not too interested in that). Those men result in a worse experience for BOTH women and men, but in a more acute fashion for the women on the receiving end of the creepiness than for the men who just have to try harder to manage to stand out above the background bullshit level.
> Those men result in a worse experience for BOTH women and men
Someone at Match Group must have worked out that having these users boosts the bottom line more than it reduces engagement and retention. Maybe these are the guys paying for Premium Platinum with extra InMails each day. (Oops wrong platform.)
It’s a viscous cycle for women. You don’t want to put too much of yourself out there, because crazy people, but not doing so ends up selling your body, which tends to attract a wider variety of men that don’t line up with your vision.
So the two extremes are basically having sex with rando internet people and getting ultra-picky.
I'm sorry, but your comment cracked me up - viscous means a thick, sticky consistency, so a viscous cycle for women, well; you meant vicious circle, I assume
I have an idea I've been toying with for a dating tool (I refuse to call it an app) based on the premise that all dating "apps" and "sites" are horrible because their incentives are aligned toward wanting people to actually use them. You pretty much have ad-driven and subscription models and both have perverse incentives. Further, the whole "wink", "like" and "swipe" nonsense increases the "meat market" commoditization and dehumanization of the whole thing.
So my idea is to put all the incentives the other way. The tool is designed to operate on a budget of ~$0. I would accept donations, but otherwise have no monetization and therefore no desire to increase "engagement" of any kind. My incentive is such that I actually don't want you to interact with the tool, because that will cost me bandwidth and processing time. I will allow you to have a profile of text and one single image of restricted size, because I don't want to have to host anything else. You will fill out a multiple choice questionnaire with as few questions as I feel I can get away with to ensure at least some level of basic compatibility, and then you do nothing.
Periodically, a cron job will run and see if anyone matches, then it will send you both each others profiles (through good old-fashion email) and ask if you'd like to go on a date. If you've both agreed, there will be a sequence of messages from the system proposing date ideas, locations, and times until consensus is reached. Then it's all up to you. This is designed to ensure that you make a real human connection to the person in a real life interaction before any contact information is ever exchanged.
It probably sounds as though this sort of thing would have a hard time attracting users. I consider that a feature, because it means it'll cost less to run and it will avoid attracting ego-inflation seekers, low effort numbers gamers, and other ungenuine people.
As envisioned, I would expect this sort of thing could cover a moderately sized state on a raspberry pi.
And I will make X profiles from X emails, filling out the questionnaire in several ways to maximize the number of hits I get. The profile will be some good ol PT Barnum style pablum that appeals to just about all of us. I will also add pictures that are either extremely flattering of me, or of someone else. It doesn't really matter.
Then I just agree to every date that gets sent to my email. Ideally this could be automated so that I could run it on a raspberry pi.
Then you... what? Don't show up to dates? Do show up but get no contact information anyway because you aren't who you said you were? That's a lot of effort to put in for essentially nothing.
You could, but I don't really see the incentive in it. At least, I don't really see how it is any easier than doing basically the same thing on any other dating platform, except those platforms put you in contact with the person before you actually have to meet them.
This is an excellent way to have a LOT of just bad, bad dates. Good luck! I hope you change, for your sake, and for the sake of the people you'll drag through dates.
Dating is a numbers game. The more dates you go on, the higher odds you have of finding someone compatible.
Sure you could be more picky and spend the same effort to go on less dates and maybe end up in the same boat at the end, you'll just get laid less often. And honestly, I learned so much about myself, about women, and about people in general by going on a bunch of average or below average dates.
I've thought about ways to improve dating networks, and I think the best solution is to throw them out and just get young people to go out in groups and do activities together. Romance would be a secondary output (as would friendships, professional networking, and plain old perspective broadening).
Rationale is that a lot of women, and to a lesser degree men, do not feel comfortable going out 1x1 with a stranger (and potential predator/rapist/catfish). Not to mention the pressure of finding common interests and cultivating a date experience. The group dynamic offers safety, and the hobby-focused nature of the activity offers entertainment without pressure.
For what it's worth, I came to the same conclusion. You cannot fix online dating, but the real problem is that the younger generations used to have a lot of face to face hangout time due to how the world worked pre-internet, and all that is gone now.
Now you have to plan every hangout and it happens once a week instead of once a day.
I think this is probably the best solution. But what activities do you recommend? Compared to a couple generations ago it seems like it's harder to find good casual activities that appeal to both sexes as a default meeting ground.
There is a dating service called Events and Adventures which operates that way. A friend of mine worked there but I never used it and don't know whether it's effective.
Bumble has its own issues. It turns out "making the first move" is anxiety inducing in everyone. What women have done on Bumble is to basically treat the "first move" as an "invitation to treat", a second shot at selecting a guy. Most of those "first moves" are exactly what they say they don't want from guys: simple "Hey"s and "Hello"s. And then they say in their profile that once they say "Hey", you're supposed to respond back with something substantial and entertaining.
I don't think dating apps/sites favor either sex more so than dating in general does. Women, in general, don't really have to try to get solicitations. Their issue is in trying to weed through all of the solicitations to find those worth responding to. It's basically the hiring problem. But there's no Hackerrank for compatibility.
And then there's the issue that even those that feel the system is tilted against them in general don't understand that it's just them. They're not successful because they aren't as kind, nice, or desirable as they think they are. Or they keep making the same bad choices in romantic pursuits and wonder why they keep getting the same outcome.
The problem with all of these apps and gimmicks and what not and certain segments of tech in general is that it assumes that deep down, people are making rational choices. We aren't.
I think you're right about dating apps not really favoring either gender. Hiring is the first thing I think of when reading about dating apps. There's just a very strong natural imbalance.
Dating apps are especially good at making people not have to face their shortcomings, i.e. I don't have to fix my shortcomings, because with a large enough pool there's going to be someone broken in the right way to accommodate me. Maybe that's rational, or maybe it's not, it really depends on expectations.
Counter intuitively, accepting that we're just stupid hairless apes makes me believe we're rational. We're not failing to find anything meaningful; we're not interested or looking.
We have our moments. But relying on rationality is an assumption that will bite you in the ass every time. Just look at markets, even when there's a clearly superior option, there's been plenty of times the inferior product wins.
Often because that inferior product manages to exploit our irrational selves either intentionally or unintentionally.
> Hiring is the first thing I think of when reading about dating apps
I agree for a different reason. The circus show about hiring is mostly bullshit. You could probably randomly select qualified candidates and turn out just fine.
Likewise with dating, ordering up another human like a sandwich creates a weird dynamic designed to keep you shopping — you stop paying when you meet someone.
If you paired 10 pairs of average people at random and had them doing some task that took them a couple of weeks, half would be “together” at some level by the end.
Doing things together in groups, which leads to almost by definition having to build relationships, including romantic, seems like the best way, and that's how things were before Internet. Some commenters above hit kind of the same notes, and I wonder, maybe an app that builds a mixed group of men and women to do some activity together offline, would result in better outcomes. Of course this will be gamed in no time by the bad intentioned. I think the truth is, that finding a mate has always been a crapshot, and largely random, through out history of life itself. Internet does not seem very successful as a mating platform, I have never been a user of dating apps so what would I know, but maybe on average it's just a little better than randomly stumbling on potential life partners. Still, going out and meeting people instead of staring in screens feels more natural to me.
I did appreciate on Bumble that women got to realize that writing that first message wasn't easy. I always carefully crafted my first message on any site, and it is disheartening to get no reply to that.
(Some of it, I think, is Tinder et al showing me profiles that it knew perfectly well were defunct. They're hoping to attract the person back, but it's a very dark pattern.)
I did find that the vast majority of women on Bumble wrote tolerable first messages. Some were better than "hi" but nonetheless didn't say much, which I interpreted as "OK, you can go ahead and write the first message." That rarely turned out well, but at least I knew the account wasn't dead and not a bot (at least, probably not).
I met a lot of great women on both Bumble and Tinder, leading to relationships everywhere from one-night stands to decade-long romances. I don't think it's easy for either men or women, albeit in different ways. It's very easy to make the mistake that thinking that if X is hard for me then X must be the only important thing, and that leads to a lot of ill will.
> Women, in general, don't really have to try to get solicitations.
Women put in high effort up front and lower effort per solicitation. Men put in lower effort up front and more effort per solicitation. Women's approach scales better, though they also bear the safety risks.
> those that feel the system is tilted against them in general don't understand that it's just them
Absolutely. Imagine if dating apps showed users their rating!
> At Tinder headquarters, I ask them if the data they’re about to show me will scar my ego. The beauty of Tinder, after all, is that rejection has been removed entirely from the process. Now, in an instant, I’d learn exactly how I ranked on Tinder. Then Solli-Nowlan revealed my score. “It’s 946,” he said. What does that mean? “It’s on the upper end of average.” It’s a vague number to process, but I knew I didn’t like hearing it. Something about “upper end of average” didn’t exactly do wonders for my ego. https://www.fastcompany.com/3054871/whats-your-tinder-score-...
On the other hand, showing your rating could be good IF coupled with actionable ways to improve it. Credit Karma but for Tinder anyone?
> I don't think dating apps/sites favor either sex more so than dating in general does.
It's a force multiplier and the dynamics that are already present in dating in general get reinforced. So you end up with 99% of the women competing for the top 1% males and the remaining 99% males competing for nothing at all because all their advances get ignored.
It's just the result of our reproductive strategies exerting an incredible influence on our behavior, more so than we personally realize.
It's always been that way with online dating. Men, on average, putting zero effort on the profile (including photos). Women put slightly more than zero effort into their profiles but get inundated with messages from mostly-terrible choices anyway because men like women.
Men spray low-effort messages at lots of women hoping for a bite. Women don't message because they have options.
Quality men trying to find any sort of extra have to work extra hard on selling themselves. Women looking for quality men have to work extra hard on creating a profile that deters the poor options they get (hard) _and_ deal with more subpar dates.
> sorting through an inbox of ... copy pasta pickup artist lines
So as a computer programmer with a LinkedIn profile, I can at least empathize a bit: I get an average of 3 job offers a week, even though I haven't really expressed any interest in changing jobs. A lot of these offers would be a major step down for me, and that's pretty clear from my profile. I still feel obligated to take the time to politely decline because I do have some sympathy for the recruiters who are just doing their best, but it's also clear they're just blasting out offers to anybody who meets a basic set of requirements.
That said - I'm much happier being in the position I'm in of too much interest than at the other end of the spectrum.
Getting off topic here, but not sure why you feel obligated to reply to the recruiters. You're just an input into their automation system 99% of the time. I find it amusing when they send an email at like 8pm on a Saturday.
This complaint should be taken about as seriously as a rich person complaining how hard it is to be rich.
Every woman can put herself in a man's position of no matches - just delete Tinder. Every rich person can become poor - just give away all their money.
Yet they don't. It's called revealed preferences. Because having options, no matter how bad, is better than not having options.
There's also an obvious selection bias - the matches may be sending low quality messages, but if women are largely selecting only the top 2% of good looking men they're skewing these results themselves. The 'better' men never get to the messaging stage at all.
I'm happy to be out of the game, but online dating is bleak for 98% of men.
The data in that book corroborates a lot of this. We're not that different from gorillas - sexual selection is tough and most of the discussion around it ranges from wrong to dishonest.
> If instead he's referring to apps like Bumble where the woman has to make the first move, see above for why some apps choose to operate with that model.
Under that model.. it's common for the first message to be "hi" or ".". Not much has changed.
What a lot of ignorant men don't realize is that's the woman saying "you start the convo." Not everything is meant to be interpreted literally in dating and relationships. If you believe that, you're doing it wrong.
Isn't that the exact lack of effort you complain about? The real problem is that wtf are you supposed to say to someone you don't know? Whatever that comes out is meaningless because you have 0 to go on. That's the point. It's a starting point.
What would they do if every man spent 30 min writing a super long message that is drowned out by the other 1000 messages? They wouldn't spend the 2000 minutes it would take to skim all of them. I certainly would give up after 10 messages.
I see this too. One thing that has struck me lately, is the similarity between the addictive nature of gambling and video games. Going to a casino once in a while or playing some video games with friends is fine. But the amount of time some people spend on video games really mimics a gambling addiction, except it's less frowned upon because they're mostly losing time instead of money. But if you consider the opportunity cost, they're losing a lot of money too.
Have been going to conferences in Vegas for 30+ years. For a long time it was just incredibly depressing walking through the floors and seeing all the elder generation playing slots at all hours. Quite the motivator to never stop working, IMO.
Now that Vegas is more young-focused, it's all age groups on the slots. Then I think, multiply those giant floors by 1000X and that's the gaming population.
In American culture money and materialism is dominant. Labor, quality of life, and time are devalued. People complain that a plumber “didn’t do anything” and then billed $170. Or an ER physician didn’t do anything yet they still got a $$$$ bill. Expertise, attention, and simply showing up to get the job done doesn’t seem to have fundamental value in common culture. But if they received a prescription, or an MRI was used, or some parts were installed there’s more appreciation.
> another friend of mine basically refuses to date anymore because he thinks the sort of culture of Tinder dating is a waste of time that favors women disproportionately.
Tinder is a waste of time for women too; if you’re at all attractive you get dozens of messages a day and half of them are scams. The best I’ve ever gotten out of Tinder has been mediocre, meaningless sex; it’s far too much work if you’re looking for anything more.
You have to go do things you enjoy and be a more interesting person. If that’s just your daily life, you’ll meet people who enjoy the same things you do and you can potentially date them (or their friends).
But yeah, I agree with you. Just because Tinder sucks doesn’t mean you shouldn’t date; just that you shouldn’t look to an app to find a partner.
I've got a buddy in a similar situation. We all came from somewhat similar backgrounds and all majored in the same, useless, thing. We lived together and while we all played a lot of video games one of the three never really moved on from that. He's still working at a low wage job behind a counter and playing video games a lot.
I think it's less that he doesnt know different but more that he never got a break in the right direction. I stumbled into a career. Our other buddy stumbled into a career. He didn't. I'm not saying he never will but I can look back and point to a few key moments that led me to where I am today. Without those I'd probably be living in my parents house playing video games too.
Risk aversion and a lack of opportunity (luck) seem to have a large impact on this phenomenon, if you will.I know everyone is quick to jump on "helicopter parenting"from the 90's (?) on, but I think (from the limited speakers I've seen on the topic - which are few) really have made a generation of risk averse peoples. Add to that an economic downturn, where a lack of opportunity makes for less situations where luck might happen where you can take those risks... and here you are. Young men in basements getting a dopamine fix in a plasticine bubble with a virtual body.
It’s also a form of perfectionism. I deal with exactly what you are describing with a family member of mine. A part of his problem is that, I shit you not, I sincerely believe he thinks he is too good for a labor/service job, or community college, or coursera, or the gym, dating someone not perfect, etc. It didn’t go his way for so long, but the ego is still there. And what is the ego exactly if not an intense defense mechanism. They have lost all ability to slowly chip away at a problem.
No, you probably won’t get an office job in the next 5 years. Maybe in the next 10. No, you won’t have enough money to move out the next 5 years, but maybe in 10. Nope, you aren’t get laid anytime soon. Few people can accept the timeline and the sheer effort it will take, and the sheer time. That’s the crux of the problem, that they are truly behind and cannot deal with the time investment required.
Enough with the lies, and start from zero. The effort it takes to be just mediocre in this world is understated.
For sure. I have met a few people who have these weird expectations around who they are and what they expect from life. As far as I'm concerned I'm playing with house money. I got lucky.
The issue with these timelines is: "is it worth the effort?"
The more effort you have to put in the more desirable it has to be. Perhaps the 5+ year timeline means that what they want falls into the "it's not worth the effort" category.
I'd like to know Mandarin, but I don't think it would be worth the effort to learn the language. Maybe if I already knew the symbols I would feel otherwise.
If it’s not worth the effort, then you must shed the entitlement factor. If it’s not worth the effort, how can you still feel you deserve those things? We’re all human, and we all know having a career, an education, a life partner, and a family are worth it. So, who are we kidding?
Sure. Maybe. His parents were both doctors and he had four siblings and an adopted sibling that all see to have done fine. But There certainly could be something I'm missing.
We seem to live in an age of such abundance and freedom that it's now possible to live in all manner of ways which seems to exacerbate these extremes.
In the past if you were a man and wanted to eat and have a home you had to work. We also relied far more on children to look after us in our old age than we do today.
Today welfare and the affordability of essentials like food make it possible for people not to work and not worry about the implications of growing old without family.
I agree it's cultural, but it's a cultural trend being fuelled by the abundance of modern day living. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know. I guess it's nice people can choose to play video games all day and not worry about working or having a family, but I worry about the impact this will have on our mental health. I also wonder what this means for economic inequality and the stability of society in general. I'm a big believer that people only care to preserve societies they have a stake in and if a large enough percentage of the population own nothing and offer no value it's very easy to see this causing a division. Should I as someone who works, pays tax, pays for his own home and pays for his own food be happy with someone who chooses not to work and have everything paid for them by people who work like me? And if you don't work and don't pay tax wouldn't you naturally want to see higher taxes and more government welfare?
Where is this socialist paradise that you speak of where you can have a home without working? There is nowhere like what you are saying.
It is the exact opposite of what you are claiming. Affordability of essentials has become so much worse that many people can't afford to live a decent life with their own home even if they are working the jobs that they can actually acquire.
These people aren't privileged because they "choose not to work and have everything paid for them by people who work like me", it is generally emotionally devastating to be stuck living with your family while your youth evaporates. Further, the money to do this is coming from the family (for those lucky enough to have a family wealthy enough). You're not paying for it with your taxes.
> Where is this socialist paradise that you speak of where you can have a home without working?
Finland, for example. "Home", of course means a simple flat in a housing block and there might be a waiting list, but housing every single one of its people regardless of employment has been something that the state has sought for a long time.
I live there and personally know people that are unwell but pushed to work because there are so many requirements, always going to doctors and filling out forms. You can't just say you don't want to work.
> It is the exact opposite of what you are claiming. Affordability of essentials has become so much worse that many people can't afford to live a decent life with their own home even if they are working the jobs that they can actually acquire.
Where do you live? Most people I know are literally given homes to live in by the government. Admittedly I'm a working class guy in the UK and I'm not that familiar with the US welfare system so perhaps its quite different there. But for example, my girlfriend's mum has never worked a day in her life but lives in a £600,000 5 bed house. When she went to the job centre last year she was advised not to take part time work because she'd lose out on the benefits.
If these people were starving or homeless, don't you think they would get a job? Today we have a generation of people who have parents rich enough to let them live in their homes rent-free without demanding they get a job while the government is there for you if you decide not to. Is it any surprise some people decide a 9-5 isn't for them?
To your point though, I do accept it's harder to own your own home, but it's certainly not harder to live without a job today. At least not here in the UK.
This story is just a lie. As others have said, council houses and benefits in the UK are not a pleasant experience, or easy to get without jumping through means testing hoops constantly
> I'm a big believer that people only care to preserve societies they have a stake in and if a large enough percentage of the population own nothing and offer no value it's very easy to see this causing a division
Wouldn't someone that is able to spend most of their time playing video games (instead of e.g. farming) want society to continue as it exists today? Without that society, wouldn't they be forced to fight/work for sustenance?
I was a whole lot more spiteful when I was playing video games 24/7 and felt like there was nowhere else to go. I would've been far happier seeing an end to everything then, when everything seemed impossible, versus now that I have some experience, some skin in the game.
> For certainly your desire for peace, and prosperity, and plenty is not prompted by any purpose of using these blessings honestly, that is to say, with moderation, sobriety, temperance, and piety; for your purpose rather is to run riot in an endless variety of sottish pleasures, and thus to generate from your prosperity a moral pestilence which will prove a thousandfold more disastrous than the fiercest enemies. It was such a calamity as this that Scipio, your chief pontiff, your best man in the judgment of the whole senate, feared when he refused to agree to the destruction of Carthage, Rome's rival and opposed Cato, who advised its destruction. He feared security, that enemy of weak minds, and he perceived that a wholesome fear would be a fit guardian for the citizens. And he was not mistaken; the event proved how wisely he had spoken. For when Carthage was destroyed, and the Roman republic delivered from its great cause of anxiety, a crowd of disastrous evils immediately resulted from the prosperous condition of things.
To be fair, your friend has the right idea about online dating: the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. It’s like playing the lottery: life-changing good if you win but a negative expectation value.
This has a lot of parallels to "opt-out" syndrome in Japan.
Given the concurrent rise of VanLife and FIRE cultural phenomena it's worth considering why many individuals in developed economies ideal life is to not work.
I'd hypothesize that the rising costs both economic, and mental associated with what many consider a basic standard of living independently probably has alot to do with it.
Why work when 60 hours per week leaves you just barely scraping by and exhausted? Why not be just barely scraping by and not exhausted.
The result of this work ethic is to remove one’s self from the workforce. It’s a reasonable question as to why a lifetimes ambition for these hard workers is to be able to do nothing.
Most people who fire do the opposite of nothing though. For example Mr money mustache, one of the early fire bloggers, doesn't work in corporate but runs his own co working space.
I'd say most firees are risk averse entrepreneurs.
Well, I cannot speak for Tinder, but you have probably seen the stats from the now-deleted OKCupid blogs. I worked in a dating service pre-Intarwebs and the dynamics are almost exactly the same, just lacking only the "instant" factor of the Internet, plus the rather expanded pool. As someone who entered people's "preferences" versus their "must-haves," certain trends emerged. To be politic about it, those trends did not favor men.
As someone who's been exposed to the stats more than most of us (I assume, pre-web dating service), do you have any particular insights? Have you thought about what one could do to address this mismatch since? I was fortunate to find my s.o. on a language exchange site, but if I felt my best options were something from the Match Group... it looks grim
No solutions, I am afraid, that do not involve large-scale genetic engineering.
In the parlance of our times, dudes are generally "thirstier." On top of it, you can call it genetics or you can call it culture, but ... men make the approach, typically. (Okay, I am done with generally and typically and trends for now) This leads to guys spamming some entirely-too-fussy gals and the usual dynamics emerging.
You've read the grim confessions of women who remorselessly admit to "dating for dinner." You've seen the baiting performed using the photo of a male model who can say simply the most awful and outrageous things. The Heightism user might have been banned on Twitter but others have emerged like the heads of hydras, reposting the casually cruel dismissal of men under six foot.
It's only the basic thirstiness that drives men to even continue, and I suspect that a lot of young men opt out, because that's just step one. They're looking at their often-divorced parents and remembering who got the house, then wondering if the game is worth the candle. I suspect the men at the intersection of easily disheartened and generally aware have been most put off, leaving the field to the exuberant and the blessed.
And remember, we are currently in a culture that doesn't seem to like men very much. Just for a giggle, go to Google, type "men are" and see what the autocomplete suggests, then do "women are." That has to add to more of the disenchantment.
Regarding heightism: the market finds the price. The average woman is 5 inches shorter than the average man. If a woman or even an employer is willing to give up iq points for height, it’s their loss. Markets don’t care for prejudice.
Dating isn't fun. At least it isn't for me as a middle aged divorce.
I get matches, I meet interesting people and go on dates and the process is just emotionally exhausting.
I would rather put in time into my job, or my friends, or my hobbies. If I can meet someone who wants to be part of my life, fantastic. If not, I will live until I don't.
As a 26 year old finishing up a Comp Sci degree, I'm in a similar camp. I mean I'd rate myself as a 5-6 straight up average. I get matches and have gone on several dates. What I've noticed is most men don't do profiles right at all. They show themselves off in what they do, not what's attractive. Also nobody every acknowledges that selfies are bad. I mean these are just little tips I've learned honing a profile over the course of a couple years.
But, thinking of dating like a resume, as well as making dates feel like interviews has made relationships nothing but a chore nowadays. It feels wholly like a business relationship without any contractual guarantees between the parties.
…but physical attractiveness is required to be curious if they have compatible interests and life goals in the first place. To continue the dating as job interview metaphor, it’s often the case that the skills you need on the job and the skills you need to get hired are often disjoint sets.
The other commenter was somewhat spot on. While it's cool that you went on a saltwater fishing trip, it's just a picture of you holding a fish. Or likewise killed a deer. A lot of women do not find that attractive on a dating profile. They will be fine with it if you mention that you do it on a date though. That's the key difference. It's not attractive whatsoever.
Now, the difference between doing it for fun once and a while and being a pro at something is completely different. You do a sport fishing league, own your own boat, and are die hard into it, it changes the context similar to what you're saying. Women would possibly find that attractive because you're not some schmuck. You've got clout somewhere and are an authority in it. That's the major difference that sets them apart. It's the exact reason why you see some SWE guys with attractive women even though they may not be attractive or seem autistic on the social specturm. They've achieved something and continually work at it. It's a subtle vetting process that states "I don't give up at the first sign of weakness and I am extremely motivated."
Basically once I moved my old profile toward doing cool things that I know interest women, my matches skyrocketed basically. It really made me understand why guys don't get swipes. It's literally a resume and you gotta make yourself the best candidate.
> Basically once I moved my old profile toward doing cool things that I know interest women, my matches skyrocketed basically. It really made me understand why guys don't get swipes. It's literally a resume and you gotta make yourself the best candidate.
What are those things? From what I've heard, the best pics are somewhat bland. Are you good looking, good fitting clothes and have a great smile? Just have this as profile. Then something with friends having fun, one shirtless (if well muscle-toned) and one with a dog. Oh and one doing sports, if that isn't the shirtless pic.
Never heard, that the activity in the background really matters.
We'll, I take pictures. If I'm out doing something, I'll take a picture or make an instagram post. I do pottery. Women universally love pottery. I play guitar. Not as universally liked but women still have an interest in it. How I dress, all my clothing is fitting and I have my own style. Even something as lame as an outdoor walk with a fanny pack. My smile is alright? Idk cause that's not what matters. Women want to see a few things and you as a guy need to know where you fit. They want to see friends, clout, hobbies, and well taken pics. Knock those out and just like a job, it never gets brought up again.
I mean I'm not amazing, had 0 friends to help me, and I still got likes (Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge). So how did I solve the "friends in a picture" issue if I had 0 friends? Go to bars. Hang out and chat with people. Somehow organically bring it up and take a pic. Boom, looks like you have friends haha. I've done it numerous times and it works flawlessly for that. Bars are also a great place to meet new friends. But at worst, you make them feel a tad uncomfortable but still make an attempt to have fun, while simultaneously benefiting you.
Take this for what you will, but if you're really struggling with dating, I highly recommend listening to the mating grounds podcast with Tucker Max. Say what you want about him, but his reasoning and extraordinarily sound. They have a "helping joe" series where they help this average dude date. Also with some other PhD guy whom I can't remember and another frat like dude. Just don't walk in with prejudices about who they are. They know their stuff hence why the topic of dating isn't difficult for them.
>It's the exact reason why you see some SWE guys with attractive women even though they may not be attractive or seem autistic on the social specturm. They've achieved something and continually work at it. It's a subtle vetting process that states "I don't give up at the first sign of weakness and I am extremely motivated."
I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying that simply being an SWE is enough to signal that "I don't give up at the first sign of weakness and I am extremely motivated." and that this is enough to be with attractive women?
> It makes no economic sense to move out and get an apartment. The cost of living in major metros makes renting nearly equivalent to paying a mortgage.
That might account for them living at home, but not for not pursuing a job.
> know one man in this age cohort who doesn't seem to have a job, just plays video games all the time, and I don't get it.
this provides some context for why some women immediately balk when they see my playstation controller and vr headset on the west elm media cabinet
"[oh god] are you ... a gamer ??"
I feel like a lot of people can't differentiate between potential partners that own a console versus whatever gamer addict they're afraid of. thinking about it, that's a decent heuristic given how many gamers bring toxic ideas with them, even if they aren't neglecting other responsibilities for games
Videogames provide fake achievement and an easy thing to do to occupy you - I think some people are more vulnerable to this kind of thing than others. For me, the fake achievement feels fake and I don't get much satisfaction out of it - but for others I think it mimics real achievement enough that they can pour hours into it.
Online dating sucks for most men - if you're not in the top 2% of attractiveness for men it is a waste of your time (especially in skewed markets like the bay area), you're better off going places to meet people in person and working on your social skills that way (I think your friend is right).
Highly recommend the game Pathologic then. A Russian subversion of video games as a medium (the vast majority of players don't finish it despite it being very short)
I think some kinds of video games provide this more than others, at least for some definitions of achievement. If somebody spends their free time painting happy trees but never sells any paintings, I personally would not say achievements are fake. The painter sets their own objective and judge success by their own personal standards, but that doesn't make their achievements fake, right? And if they decide to depict things using lego instead of paint, is that fundamentally different? It's a different form of craft, but I don't consider building sculptures out of lego to be faker than doing the same from clay.
Some video games are essentially the same as that. For instance, creative-mode minecraft seems to be arts and crafts as much as it is a game.
Yeah - I didn't mean to generalize the entire medium.
I love story based games, indie games, etc. I think creative games like Minecraft are similarly worthwhile too.
Things like:
- Gone Home
- Life is Strange
- Firewatch
- Tacoma
- Elsinore
- Untitled Goose Game
There's lots of great stuff out there that isn't just a slot machine. Unfortunately slot machines make a lot of money so you also get WoW, and GTA ruined by GTA Online, in-app purchase corrupting content into Zynga style everything.
Kudos to Apple for trying to combat this with Apple Arcade.
The bay area is BRUTAL for dating; especially if you aren't' a white. conventionally attractive millionaire. I'm not saying this based onm tinder but from actually putting myself out there at bars and parties.
7 years working in startups -> long dry spells between a few one night stands. Eventually I gave up trying to form a connection with anyone. I had plenty of cash but life just felt empty and lonely.
One day I had enough and picked up a remote job and started traveling. The dating pool gets a lot better when you leave the united states. I had met a great girlfriend within a month of staying in Colombia.
Bay area -> make your money and get out as soon as you have the connections. its not worth staying.
That's quite an interesting graph. I wonder if it is also influenced by things to do with average age or age of retirement, time spent in school, or something like that. Just looking at it makes me wonder about demographics/education/etc. That's about a 20% drop over the years, I would assume caused by a number of factors.
My speculation is that it’s like the argument that minimum wages increase the skill floor for employment. However, it’s that a combination of automation and cost optimization eliminated all the marginal jobs, rather than the wage floor. Automation allows a salary employee to pick up what previously would have been a full-time minimum wage position under “other duties as assigned” without overworking them. Cost optimization meant that companies realized that they do not need their floors to be that sparkling clean, further reducing the number of low-wage/low-skill positions.
I'd suspect this has a lot of to with women being in the workforce meaning men are less required to work relentlessly. More recently, it's the aging population. The chart for just prime age males is less dramatic:
Also, a topic that has been surprisingly quiet is that employment-population rate absolutely cratered to a near 50-year low during the pandemic. We had a positive report in the UNRATE last week, but participation is still digging out of an historic hole.
Maybe is has to do with women entering the labor force?
Here I plotted the labor force participation rate of women and men plus the sum of both. While the rate for men declines, the one for women increases.
Update: here is a new graph without the assumption that there are equally many men and women (participation rates for each are now multiplied by the population size of each and normalized to total population). The interesting part is that the total labor participation rate is moving very little, just between ~59-67%.
// OLD:
The sum of both moves between 120 and 135% (assumption here is that there are roughly as many men as there are women which should be approximately correct): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=EFEs
Obviously, the percentage of women in the workforce shot up after anti-discrimination laws were applied to sex, but since the turn of the century, that trend has leveled off and reversed. If you just look at the last 20 years, the percentage of men and women in the work force have both been going down.
Using your own, new chart (EFG8), which I used DoL statistics to verify [1], the overall labor force participation rate dropped from 67 in 2000 to 63 right before the pandemic hit, almost monotonically. What happened 20 years ago?
The people guiding our economy won't risk the "wrong sorts" of people getting too many rights, having an income, and thinking they deserve to be able to own a home, start a family, and build any generational wealth. Now all the rest of us are feeling the fallout from it too. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300006
This seems like a kind rational economic choice. If there are not enough good jobs that can support independent living, providing for a spouse, buying a home or raising a family, then staying home with the easy accomplishment of video games makes sense. Most people never live outside their home states and can't afford to leave the support network of their family and close friends. If you grew up in a medium or high cost of living area, then you're sort of stuck. I work in tech and still, owning a home seems pretty distant, so I can't imagine how it must be for someone without job skills.
Until this year, I lived in the same place I grew up, one of the highest cost-of-living places on the planet: NYC. Until the pandemic, the goal of owning a home did seem totally out of reach for me, even with my remote SV tech job salary.
Then I moved to an unincorporated community in TN, because NYC's lockdowns, mask mandates, and general cultural decay was too much for me to bear - financially, emotionally, and even ethically.
I now own 15 acres of land with two houses on it. The median income in this part is <40k/yr and yet it's safer, friendlier, healthier, and best of all, much freer. High cost of living is a true killer of communities and the more expensive your area is, it's quite likely it's also a lot less free.
If you can leave the major cities in the US, it's possible for life to become a whole lot nicer.
Unsure why you're getting downvoted for this -- it makes good sense, and many could benefit from this kind of thing. I have a friend who moved from NYC to Ohio recently. He was bellyaching about it a lot (the move was for work), since he thought he would be so sad to leave the cultural opportunities of NYC, etc. Instead he has found that a) Ohio wasn't so bad after all, b) his stress-related conditions have evaporated, and c) he has more time to pursue what he loves doing in that environment.
Any hint that dense urban living is not the optimal lifestyle for everyone gets downvoted here. For example, here's my super-controversial anecdote from yesterday, that people took time out of their day to try to bury: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27450896
Well there's also the angle of people moving from the big city into a small rural community and gentrifying it. A good friend of mine had to deal with this trend in Bozeman and was ultimately pretty much forced out by it.
There's definitely a tension between bringing money and people into communities that need them and bringing a lot of money and people and different preferences into communities in a way that makes them less good for the people already there.
You gotta keep hyping up the big cities: talk about the usual cliches like the food, the movie scenes, the 'culture'. Keep cities popular so everybody stays there and leaves land in the countryside for the rest of us.
Has there been any culture shock for you? As someone who grew up in NJ, I'm always interested in hearing how other tri-state area people deal with moving from an urban to a rural environment.
I plan to do the same in a couple years, my hometown is unaffordable, with tech like Starlink coming online and the pandemic making remote work more common I can foresee a subset of tech workers choosing this path if they feel alienated in the larger tech cities.
I'm just now middle aged and even when I was a twenty-something I never felt as ambitious or as risk embracing as I was supposed to be. My father and grandfather got into way more trouble than I ever did, with just about every facet of their life. My stories are absolutely tame in comparison.
It turns out the steady dopamine faucet is a stronger motivator than going out and trying to flirt, date, make friends, network, or hustle. Just spending time on the PC isn't even particularly fun, but as soon as someone proposes plans I suddenly feel like backing out and retreating back into my own world. I definitely sense this isn't "normal" for men and it's probably a consequence of modernity.
This is a troubling trend that I see in my sons and that I battle in myself.
Why go out and compete for money, success and sex when those things are at your fingertips. I really think it’s as simple as “turn off the TV”. The problem is that the world is a hard place, and games/porn offer a “good enough” alternative that offsets the trouble of putting yourself out there.
Sorry for making this thread weird by bringing porn in.
No, it's absolutely part of the equation. The internet has been an absolute game changer for how the human libido is satisfied. Pornography went from something rarely seen and socially awkward to acquire to something that is now ubiquitous, instant access, and even individualized. In fact, you have to go out of your way to avoid seeing sexual content on the internet.
Or brains and reward-systems have evolved for an existence as semi-nomadic subsidence hunter-gatherers. We're not equipped to deal with "temptations" modern society has to offer.
While porn might be a particularly good example, there's plenty of other traps as well. Social media, games, gambling, ...
All that is geared towards maximized 'engagement', e.g. to make us as addicted as possible in as little time as possible. It plays into our worst tendencies.
"If there are not enough good jobs that can support independent living, providing for a spouse, buying a home or raising a family,"
This seems to be an issue across the board, at least in degrees, but that's because we live in an extractive oligarchy. This can't last forever. I just hope it doesn't lead to either revolution or socialism. We need to rethink our economic principles. Capitalism as state-sponsored usury or as consumerist decadence is not viable, just, or good.
Recall that in the 1950s, the single income of a working father sufficed to support a wife and their many children (since birth rates were much higher then). You can't do that anymore. That seems like a massive regression. We may have more flavors of ice cream, but who cares if that comes at the price of the important stuff. I say this without idealizing those decades. Those are the decades, after all, that led us to where we are today.
"then staying home with the easy accomplishment of video games makes sense."
Well, it doesn't make sense from the perspective of human flourishing. There are other things that a person in that position can be doing rather than pissing his life away in masturbatory activities like video games. This speaks to a deeper demoralization in our society, and in this case, that of men, and not just those who are unemployed or living at home. Our culture sucks.
The 1950's were an anomaly. Europe was in the doldrums, Asia was yet to develop. America had little competition for the resources it needed. I doubt those days are coming back any time soon. If anything its going to get worse as the rest of the world catches up and the dwindling resources people need are stretched between ever more people.
1. Most want to start business and become rich, not work for someone else. Starting business is difficult, needs lots of work, even if you are smart and hardworking, have capital to start, still you need social skills which present generation didn't develop, so getting along with others and leading others is still difficult which limits the success.
2. Anything you'll come up, there are guys who are already doing it better.
3. Work hard for what!? Beyond basic needs, even in dating women demand millionaires, average Joes are treated like disposable good for nothing who women say are creeps because they don't have money to build their IG brand and devour women with lavish gifts.
At the end of day, most people simply will not be motivated to take part in such system now that internet makes it possible for you to remotely live any life you dream of living even if it's only through some YouTube. A lot of things now seem less enticing.
Even guys who society might say are successful can't afford real estate at today's price, only way to afford considerable land is to move away from cities but moving away from cities also takes away your income source.
All these reasons are why I don't hustle hard anymore. I just try to make enough to coast in life and explore my hobbies, not working hard to get rich or any such goal. Because I don't really see how more money will change my life.
I agree with your first two points. Starting a business is hard, you'll probably fail (statistically) and there is likely someone else doing it better than you already. But part of starting a business is looking at that adversity and doing it anyways.
Your third point about dating, I couldn't disagree more. If you go on social media you will see arguments very similar to the one you made, basically if you aren't an athlete/millionaire/etc, don't even bother. I think these arguments come from a bitter place and as a result generalize women in general. I'm an average looking dude, certainly not a millionaire, but I go on dates pretty much every week with different women. I found that it's all about just putting yourself out there.
There is big difference between going on dates every week and finding a woman that will treat you as a potential life partner and father for her children...
I think this is a huge distinction. Stable career prospects are a huge factor in choosing a partner. And the HN poster you are replying to probably has better career prospects than most. The millionaire talking point seems like a distraction. The point is that many men have zero career prospects, and probably have a pretty terrible dating pool as a result. This all hangs together, no job, no partner, no kids, no home.
Where do you live? This has not been my experience on the west coast.
You might be underselling yourself. In any major city, being average isn’t sufficient. You’re just swiped over for the next guy who is above average. (They always exist on the apps, nearly infinite amount)
On dating apps, there are to most people an endless amount. You can just keep swiping. Very few people will swipe through the 200k+ dating profiles available in their area. Thus, endless…
Regardless of how women feel men are acting towards them, the stats don’t lie, women receive far more swipes than men. Something like 36x more.
I live over on the East Coast. I'd say that I look average, but its also about the profile and how you sell yourself.
(This is pure speculation based on my experiences) Out here I've noticed that Tinder and Bumble are just terrible to use, Hinge though seems to be the sweet spot. The problem I see with Tinder and Hinge is with the swiping, it turns it into a game of sorts where you're playing whose post attractive based on the number of points (matches) you get. With how Hinge is setup, I get fewer matches, but of those matches, I end up going on first dates much more often.
I also found that it's about playing the algorithm a bit and making sure your profile is setup right, think of it in terms conversion rate (from being in the "This person liked you" section to matching with someone). Before I started having success I went through probably 10+ iterations and tweaks to my profile to see what worked and what didn't. I also found that sometimes the algorithm just said F you and pushed me down to the bottom of the stack. In that case delete your profile and recreate it, I've had to do this once.
Go outside. Stop using apps. Unless youre incredibly attractive you always will get beaten by the person who makes a move in the real world. Hetero dating is gendered and apps remove the steps that a hetero man has to take, theres not much incentive for a woman who is already hit on regularly to use a dating app.
I wouldn’t say that’s really universally true. I’ve found many people who met their long term partner online and had a plethora of people coming up to them. I’d say sometimes online is better for particular interests. (Depends on the app)
Outside is quite overrated. Unless you’re in a particular niche where forced interaction is a thing or you’re exposed to an endless amount of people who are interested in partnering, you’re going to have a bad time. (Even compared to online dating, the real world sucks a lot more these days for the average man - as you’re always competing with both even if you opt out of one) Add on the typical issues we have in our culture and well - it’s practically taboo to approach people these days out of the blue outside an app.
I’ve got a lot of experience with online and offline (“outside”) and both are quite horrific for the average man. Hell, I’m exceptional in some areas and I have had a hell of a hard time anyway. People really want their niche - whatever that is.
I’ve been fortunate to find someone and mostly fit their niche but it was a long road. A lot of people who wanted everything and expected to give nothing.
This is a very pessimistic and distorted take on things.
1. From what I have seen most people want a job that pays for their lifestyle and isn't soul destroying. Sure people fantasize about becoming a successful entrepreneur, but certainly not most and not enough to give up on work in general.
3. This is frankly ridiculous and such a blatantly false view of what women want that it borders on incel philosophy. It appears entirely based on the extremely exaggerated and polarized views seen on social media rather than the far more moderate and balanced views the average person you come across will have. Most women do not demand millionaires. This is readily apparent if you talk to real women instead of only watching TikTok and Instagram models.
>> Even in dating women demand millionaires, average Joes are treated like disposable good for nothing who women say are creeps because they don't have money to build their IG brand and devour women with lavish gifts.
This is a ridiculous caricature of women. Most women aren't spending their time building IG brands, counting lavish gifts, and petulantly demanding millionaires. This sounds like a cartoon villain or something from a reality TV show.
Most women are trying to find their place in the world, figure out their goals, establish a career with reasonable prospects, work on hobbies, create a support network of friends, and hopefully find a partner to start a family.
If your attitude towards women is that they are money-hungry, delusionally entitled, and over-demanding then I'm not surprised they don't waste their time trying to convince you otherwise. They are busy spending time with people and looking for partners who don't treat them like delusional, spoiled children.
>This is a ridiculous caricature of women. Most women aren't spending their time building IG brands, counting lavish gifts, and petulantly demanding millionaires. This sounds like a cartoon villain or something from a reality TV show.
yes but this accurate in describing what the last couple women I was with were like. they were both women who approached me first, whatever that might tell you.
I lived with my parents on and off until I was 31, that was when I managed to marry and move out hopefully permanently this time.
It is Anedacta... but I think I know what is going on.
1. The labor market is a mess, for example today I got another rejection letter from a job I sent my resume, thing is, I am literally perfect for the job, my resume (that I didn't tailor for it) matched perfectly what they asked, even the "additional" things, including the fact they wanted someone that made Hidden Object games before (I had a whole company to make those with millions of downloads).
I have a strong impression hiring is just screwed, people often don't even read resumes, for example I had a company invite me to do a job I don't know how to do, only for the interviewer of the company realize they are wasting time (a company asked me to do ML work, I never listed ML anywhere in my resume).
Also I am 33 now, and never had a job registered legally in my country, I only had contracts and "contracts".
Also here having internship is mandatory to graduate, a lot of my friends failed to graduate beause they didn't found any internship even for free, to graduate myself I actually created a company and hired myself (it is legal to do that O.o).
Now relationshipwise: I looked for relationships very hard, and kept finding only people wnating flings, including one person that scammed me (she claimed she would marry me and whatnot to convince me to have sex with her, since I wanted to marry virgin, after she got bored with me she declared that all she wanted was my body and kicked me out).
Only reason I managed to marry at all, is that I went to a church, found a childhood friend there that also wanted to marry and was having similar issues, and I asked her right off the bat if she wanted to marry me then, and she said yes. (we are very happy, for those wondering...)
If it wasn't for a lucky coincincidence (in case you don't believe in God or something... I only went to that church because my car broke that day when I was going elsewhere and going that church was in the situation at the time the logical option) I probably would still be alone.
Same thing applies to a lot of my friends, many, many of them are single, and jobless, after a while some of them just give up on living properly and settle for videogames... videogames are not the culprit, they are the escape, they are a solution to have a life, even if virtual, after your real life becomes seemly impossible to live.
EDIT: by the way, student debt doesn't help, for example I did got "legal" job offers, but to earn mininum wage (for example supermarket cashier), thing is, my student debt monthly payments was roughly twice the mininum wage, so accepting a mininum wage legal job would put me in further debt. Thankfully my Startup Kidoteca was a reasonable success and I paid my debts with it.
I had a whole company to make those with millions of downloads
After my first startup failed I was rejected for developer jobs, and a few places said it was because they thought I'd want to quit and start a new company rather than stay there for the long haul. More anecdata obviously, but some employers see someone's previous independence as a forewarning of that person looking for independence again in the near future.
I got this too. Even with a strong interest in the business area and multiple hours of interviews going well: “You’d be a great fit here”, “You were technically strong”, … , “We don’t think you really want this job”.
I really wanted that job. That’s only the most recent, but I have had an overwhelming number of these experiences. I know my own worth, but to convince someone to actually let you work for them - impossible.
There's no need to over-analyze this - we're talking about a generation of useless oafs. Days spent playing video games or other couch-bound non-activities, eating trash food, shitposting on the internet. I wish there was some way we could exile them to an island.
Part of this problem is our societal failure to build enough housing to keep up with the increasing number of people, with a resulting increase in housing costs that has significantly outpaced the median wage. If you can't afford to live on your own, and can't afford housing where the jobs are located, then you're more likely to live with your parents and be unemployed.
Adding to this, we've also abandoned the idea of building out in the middle of nowhere and linking it to a city center with a rail line. I'd gladly buy a cheap home in the boonies if I could take a train into work instead of driving.
We do need density at the end of that rail line - dense towns connected to a dense metropolitan hub via a fast rail line. For example Ann Arbor to Detroit, Davis to Sacramento (neither of which have fast rail lines to connect them).
What we've built instead for more than half a century is continuous radiating sprawl.
There is no way the tax base of the boonies can support the initial and operating costs of a rail line. Therefore it is not an option, and why you do not see it anywhere.
Even suburbs cannot afford all of their ongoing infrastructure obligations, and why you see many dilapidated areas.
This is all becoming apparent now because birthrates have plummeted hence what used to be masked by economic growth due to sheer population growth no longer has the ability to be papered over with increased tax collections due to increased population.
I personally believe this will be more common in the future, but I’m less convinced of a rail connection. I think with the increasing popularity of working from home, availability of utilities (satellite internet, solar power) in more rural places and the relative cost of rural land, people will start settling a few hours outside larger cities without having to sacrifice much in terms of quality of life.
Its going to be significantly more realistic to retrofit existing roads and highways with machine-readable signage and traffic lights (for example, why do cars have to read traffic lights with cameras, why can't the lights broadcast the status locally?)
Then we can run autonomous vehicles (private and corporate) over the same infrastructure.
> Part of this problem is our societal failure to build enough housing to keep up with the increasing number of people.
The issue is human overpopulation, not our society’s “failure” to destroy the fabric of closely knit communities.
Humans are by far the least efficient life form on this planet, and what little enjoyment most humans get out of life mostly comes down to the integrity of their local communities: their safety, their health, their prosperity. Yet we’ve become so hyperfocused on economic growth that we’ve turned our larger society into a malignant tumor unto Earth, while ironically an increasingly high proportion of humans lead unhappy, unfulfilled lives.
Why do so many people just accept the answer is more growth? Until we can master interstellar travel, we have to contend with finite physical resources.
Without economic growth we’d still be hunter gatherers. Growing crops allowed people to have excess food and support classes of people whose occupation was non-food related. The industrial revolution not only allowed for mass production but the Haber process by which fossil fuels are turned into fertilizer. Without it we would only be able to feed half the world.
Technological advancement and human overpopulation are orthogonal concepts. It’s perfectly reasonable to believe the planet is heavily overpopulated with humans and also that technological advancement is desireable.
There is very much not a direct relationship between absolute number of humans, and technological advancement. This is increasingly true as we inch closer to AGI.
> There is very much not a direct relationship between absolute number of humans, and technological advancement.
There very much absolutely is a direct and bidirectional link between the two. Technological advancement (esp fetilizers) has been crucial to the increase in the absolute number of humans to its current level.
There is also good reason to think that there are direct effects in the opposite direction. There seems likely to be a minimum population that can support the degree of specialization needed for a given level of technological advancement.
But while there absolutely is a direct relationship, I don't think that your core point is necessarily wrong. The minimum population required to maintain our current level of technology might well be one or more magnitudes less than our current population. Our current population may well be sufficient to achieve the level of technology required to become a space habitating species.
Despite claiming “a direct and (emphasis added) bidirectional link” exists, you’ve only argued for a link between technological advancement and population size, and not vice versa. So it would seem we actually agree?
(E.g. you don’t seem to be arguing increasing the human population by X% leads to X% technological advancement.)
Current human population levels are ecologically unsustainable without several major shifts taking place — Sir David Attenborough counts regulating the human population size among them [1].
> Despite claiming “a direct and (emphasis added) bidirectional link” exists, you’ve only argued for a link between technological advancement and population size, and not vice versa.
That is not correct. I laid out the effects in both directions.
In that case, could you please expound upon why increasing the human population by X% increases our technological advancement by X%? I must’ve missed where you supported that assertion with facts or evidence.
> There seems likely to be a minimum population that can support the degree of specialization needed for a given level of technological advancement.
50 people can support much smaller degree of specialization than 50 million people can. This should be fairly obvious, so I am not sure why it needs to be restated.
Granted, having X number of living humans could conceivably be necessary to facilitate the specialization required to bootstrap technological advancement. But even a highly generous take on this would reveal it’s “necessary but not sufficient”. Fundamentally, X number of humans does not equal X level of technology. If an X% increase in population really did in fact lead to an X% increase in technological advancement, then we could e.g. achieve AGI merely by multiplying the number of living humans by some constant.
I'm in the labor force, but live at home. I can absolutely afford to purchase a home.
Why don't I?
Because I'm not spending $250,000+ on 1400sq ft. These types of articles make it seem like some huge mystery as to why society is the way it is today. It's no mystery. Houses cost to much and employers don't pay enough.
I also can't compete with Blackrock and other professionally managed funds buying up swaths of homes tens of thousands of dollars over asking price because they want to rent them out later.
It's beyond my technical ability, but I always wished I was able to create an app where contractors could sign up to build a town "at cost" with everyone contributing their specialty. Each finished town would have an electrician/HVAC/etc for repairs or to other business with.
Maybe that would be something to pivot towards. Start with volunteer work. "Let's clean up the beach 6/10". People could earn karma/upvotes from the others who also contributed that's worthless like here, or to spend on stuff donated.
When my wife and I bought our house (Seattle area) six years ago, I was uneasy about spending $300k, and my family in the Midwest was aghast that we paid asking price.
Anyone in this area would now laugh at my previous situation; I certainly do. We briefly considered buying a slightly larger house in the area, but everything is going for about $800k now.
If I were just entering the job and housing market today here in the PNW, I would absolutely stay with my parents if I could. And I rather expect that my kids won't move out at 18.
I've been wanting to buy a house around Seattle for a while, but the asking prices are so ridiculous for what you get... it's just not worth it. Personally, I'm gonna continue renting for a while to see if the remote work situation opens new opportunities or brings prices down.
That being said, I learned recently that for the same prices you would pay here you can get a castle in Europe... so I made that my retirement goal.
Not to mention, a lot of older housing which ends up being cheaper, has just a myriad of problems with it. They become massive money pits or take well beyond 10+ years to even make a dent beyond the interest paid. Plus you need to fix them constantly or put up with a subpar experience. Over time, I guarantee you save more time renting than you ever will buying a home. People forget to factor that moving the law, blowing snow, paying property taxes and insurance all factor in as additional costs to maintaining property. That amounts to time lost. Unlike money, you can never get that back.
I try to tell this to kids having FOMO right now with the housing market going crazy(same feeling people had in '06, even if the causes were different).
I bought a house young(26) and spent a good part of the next 16 years working on it. Sure, I enjoyed some of it, but much of it I did not. I did make money with the appreciation, but I also spent a lot on repairs and improvements. If I had focused on my career and my hobbies, I'd be richer and happier now. That all said, I didn't have kids. Maybe if I did I'd think it was worth it. Society puts a high value on having a home though, and much of that is bullshit. The world wants you to think owning a home will complete your life and signify your success but it is much more complicated than that.
Homes tie you down. They're fairly illiquid assets. Transactional costs are huge. Neighborhood issues can significantly affect your quality of life and net worth while remaining nearly completely outside your control.
This is experience that nobody is told when they buy a house for the first time. Not to mention being tied down. Plus like you mentioned with your career and hobbies. They're just a shackle if your not committed to the lifestyle. Hopefully things worked out in the end.
For myself, I actually worked in the mortgage industry for a few years and nothing jaded me about homeownership more. It's a monumental scam unless you're a DINK family and maybe live in a condo. That's a bit smarter but the most expensive option out of all types of living usually.
>> These types of articles make it seem like some huge mystery as to why society is the way it is today. It's no mystery. Houses cost to much and employers don't pay enough.
This is so true. I'd take it further -- for many (not for most of us developers/engineers) but for many others, the choice to move out is a very risky one because you're constantly on a thin line between paying student loans, mortgage/rent, and other costs of employment and wages may not grow while costs continue to grow. I've seen people just give up and enjoy what they have -- a parent's home at the cost of employment. Remember that it costs money to earn money if you need to move to a metro area and that cost can exceed the actual income, especially if it is a job without wage growth.
I think semi-permanent WFH changes the equation quite a bit -- one can now live with parents, earn, and save up money to hopefully cross the chasm into the world of sustainable ownership.
>I think semi-permanent WFH changes the equation quite a bit -- one can now live with parents, earn, and save up money to hopefully cross the chasm into the world of sustainable ownership.
This is what I'm doing I'm a software dev in my early 30's. A couple of years ago I moved back in with my parents for some health related reasons after being on my own for a decade or so, and ended up staying with them for another health reason.
Then COVID happened and the job I started 6 months earlier went full time remote. Previously I intended to move back to the city because my commute sucked. They've since terminated office leases and seem to be intending to go full time remote for another significant period of time if not permanently. I am saving an insane amount of money and I intend to stay with my parents as long as is feasible.
In a strange way, COVID is the best thing to ever happen to me financially. Home ownership in a dream location is looking to be a feat within reach in less than a decade.
The pay is probably higher where you are, and in smaller markets (OP) people that are from your market are moving in driving up prices so that natives can't afford anything. That is my current situation as well, in the Nashville market. Homes that were only $300K a few years ago have shot up to $600-700K in just 3 years. A 2 bedroom condo 10 years ago that was $200K is now closer to a million.
right now, I can reasonably afford a $1.3 million mortgage. i could do more if i was willing to lose the ability to save/invest, and also rent out multiple rooms to strangers
there is nothing at that price point (or below) that i would consider worth the current cost, in any of the cities that I actually want to live in. and even if I found something, it's so unfair that my property tax rate would be so much higher compared to others (california)
i'm just going to save money, invest in things that arent real estate, and emigrate at some point. i think the only exception is if I married someone who was given a house by their family. not too unlikely in the bay area or in southern california, but it's still not something i can bank on. i wouldn't even want to if it was.
I really wish this stigma against living "at home" would go away. Multigenerational homes has been the standard for thousands of years, and still is in large portions of the world.
On one hand, there shouldn't be anything shameful about living "at home", especially if it's purposeful. (looking back, it probably would have made sense to stay with my folks even longer than I did in order to save more money)
Yet living at home and not building anything into late adulthood tends not to be a good way to generate intergenerational wealth. Until the international economic paradigm changes, I can't see how it's a good thing for people to have nothing to pass on to their children.
I have a very multicultural background, but the dominant cultural view, at least when it comes to money, is Chinese.
For us, living at home is not failure. Moving out without planning to start a family if you live in the same city as your parents is considered wasting money.
People use 'living at home' as a stand-in for a set of properties: unemployed or lowly employed, low ambition, single, excess time on entertainment, etc.
Of course they aren't always true individually (I know some of my facebook colleagues lived at home) but from a rough demographic perspective, it's true.
We do this a lot: consider that teen pregnancy is understood to be unwanted, thwarting educational opportunities, etc. but in some religious communities a 17 year-old might be married and ready to bear children. It's just that's a very small proportion, and doesn't diminish that teen pregnancy is generally considered a problem.
The title of the article says that they aren't pursuing employment. The fact they are living at home is explaining how they do that. At least in the article I read it as being stigma against people just staying at their parents homes and playing video games--not against multigenerational homes where young men were working.
I've got two nephews aged 34 and 32 who still live at home and play video games all the time and rarely leave their rooms. Neither has ever had a job that lasted more than a month or so. Neither ever learned to drive even though they live in a town with little or no public transit. They haven't had any education beyond high school. They seem wholly unprepared to navigate life without their parents. It's a slow motion tragedy.
I suppose they'll inherit the house if it's paid off by then and continue to live as they are for a time. They seem fond of instant ramen, so I guess maybe they're partially prepared. But then again, when the property tax comes due they'll likely not be able to pay it and eventually become homeless after the house proceeds run out. The future seems pretty bleak for them.
I know someone who used to fit that description quite well and then apparently made it out at some point between 35 and 40. Seems like there is always room for a surprise improvement left.
Yeah, well, maybe. But currently they don't seem to have any motivation which is a prerequisite to improvement. I think their parents should provide that motivation by being a good bit tougher on them. They sometimes try this, but then go soft on them again after not very long.
If I may be so bold, I would encourage you to have a frank discussion around estate planning with their parents to best insulate them from pain in the future. I would recommend the home be put into a trust, a trustee appointed for the trust after parents’ deaths, and enough investments set aside to cover property taxes and maintenance on the property with investment income until death of the children. What happens to the estate after that is a family discussion.
I have seen the results of not doing this. Don’t pass the pain down. You want your children to succeed, but you also don’t want them to suffer needlessly. Being homeless is an incredibly difficult gravity well to escape, more so without appreciable skills.
(not an attorney or financial planner, not your attorney or financial planner, please consult one of each, educational purposes only)
This is the destiny of all men in a world dominated by radical feminist ideology.
Both they (your nephews) and the radical feminists in charge (eg: Biden/Harris Administration) look at this situation without blinking and both come to the same conclusion, "if they're employed then they're taking a job away from a woman" and "not a bug, working as intended, won't-fix."
It’s like drug or alcohol addiction. People can become somewhat “born again” usually after some kind of catastrophe and/or “rock bottom” moment. Parents allowing this from their adult children are akin to addict enablers.
Hey, stop doxxing me! Just kidding, but this post accurately describes my 20s and early 30s.
I’ve been ‘born again’ twice, once after opiate addiction and once after alcohol. I had an adult parent enabling me throughout as well. Two rock bottom moments, after the first I decided to disregard the advice I was given, and it didn’t take. The second time, I was humbled and did the work by heeding the advice I was given again. Sober house and outpatient after the inpatient stay, getting a job after outpatient, going to meetings for a year, and staying sober.
Almost 6 years later, I went from making $10/hr part time to a salaried position making low six figures in total compensation. I have a much healthier relationship with my adult enabler parent and have paid back a substantial amount of the money I guilted them out of over the years. My relationships with family have never been better, I have a great partner, and a job I enjoy. It is possible to escape, but sometimes does require a rock bottom moment.
I also spent a considerable amount of time escaping into games and TV shows, there’s a lot of overlap there with drug addiction, escapism, gambling/day trading, etc.
> ’ve been ‘born again’ twice, once after opiate addiction and once after alcohol. I had an adult parent enabling me throughout as well
As a parent of 4 kids who for various reasons are all at elevated risk for substance abuse, what can I do if/when this happens to one of my kids to not enable them?
Let’s not derail the thread. Social security is underfunded, but will continue to provide benefits at a reduced level (~76%) when the trust fund runs dry in 2034 (which is just accounting in the gov budget). A variety of small measures can be implemented to ensure ongoing solvency, and likely will take place, even if extreme measures like a contribution from the general fund is needed. The US does not default on its obligations, and as long as there is economic activity, there will be contributions to social security.
That's absolutely wild. As far as I knew the most you owe anyone staying in your house is 24 hours to remove their things after which you can call the sheriff to arrest them as a trespasser. I can't believe they had to go to court over that.
Most states require all kinds of hoops to evict a resident. Even without a a lease. You can’t just lock them out. Sometimes the penalties for a wrongful eviction can be severe. And, in some states, there are criminal penalties.
(As a practical matter, it rarely comes to this as a couch-surfer will go find another couch instead of wasting money on attorneys and the like. But, typically, the owner of the property can’t just unilaterally decide a resident is a trespasser and kick them out.)
Depends on the state. New York requires an ejectment hearing since he's family but in most states he doesn't have any more rights than a regular guest, since by his own admission he has never been asked to pay rent or contribute to expenses. Outside of certain cities with local protection laws, you can just change the locks when they leave.
Do you think that video game addiction contributes to this kind of thing, or is the video game addiction a coping mechanism?
I think video game addiction is an incredibly underreported and highly destructive phenomenon. I encounter (and had to fire a few days ago) lots of young men who don't appear to ever sleep, and are highly unproductive, unmotivated, and constantly distracted. The kid I had to fire (I call him kid, but he was 28 and incredibly immature) reminded me of a former colleague in the construction industry who relapsed on his crack/cocaine addiction. Distracted, listless, kind of just there for the ride.
Edit:
Apparently ASKING about video game addiction merits downvotes with zero responses explaining why.
I don't think video games have anything to do with it. Humans are naturally lazy, and if all your needs are being taken care of for you, then you'll naturally seek entertainment for your boredom.
They could do all sorts of things in their spare time, from watching tv shows, movies, youtube, anime, browsing reddit/twitter/instagram/tiktok, etc.
I think video game addiction definitely contributes. I used to spend a fair amount of time playing first person shooters in my childhood 15-20 years ago. I haven't played much nowadays but these games provide a sense of "progress" and "accomplishment", which people would probably normally seek outside. Even in the past 5 years, I've caught myself having a reflex to open a game like Apex Legends or Valorant whenever I had a free moment instead of going for a run outside, playing piano, or cooking dinner. The problem is they're really fun also, which exacerbates the problem since it's easy to follow the "greedy optimization" algorithm in life and do things that are fun and rewarding as opposed to doing challenging but longer-term actually rewarding things.
This is not to say that you should never play video games. I've found that they've been great for staying in touch with friends I would've otherwise lost touch with. A few hours a week isn't bad at all. It's just that it can snowball very quickly if you're not mindful about how you spend your time.
I luckily never really became addicted to any video games, but I'm concerned for my future children who will undoubtedly encounter video games in the future some day.
The brief synopsis of video game tester I remember reading somewhere is that it's actually incredibly boring, because it involves finding and exhaustively reproducing bugs, not actually playing a game. Is that accurate?
Incredibly boring, yes. What you do is exhaustively go through every option at every point in play, and verify it does the expected thing. Then you get a new version with fixes/improvements, and do it all over again. You learn to hate every moment doing this.
The dorm in college had a pinball machine, the old mechanical contraptions before LEDs took over. I was fascinated by them, but had no money, so playing them was a rare treat (10 cents a game, 25 for 3 games). One day, the coin op broke, and free games galore. Yay!
After playing that continuously for hours, something broke in me, and I just couldn't stand playing pinball anymore.
I honestly cannot fathom people managing to spend their lives playing video games.
The same thing happened to me with fireworks. I grew up fascinated by fireworks, and would blow every penny on them on the 4th. One day, in college, I had enough cash to buy all I wanted. I bought a lot. Went out to a field, and started lighting and throwing the black cats one by one. Bang, bang, bang. Some hours went by, again something broke. I haven't bought fireworks since. I have no interest in firework displays. The needle doesn't even move.
Go figure.
Never lost my interest in muscle cars, though :-) I grin like an idiot when I drive mine.
Looks like you're being downvoted for suggesting video game addiction, but I think it's a huge part of it. I refer to it as 'digital drugs'. They're definitely addicted. Even on rare occasions when they show up to family gatherings they've got their face glued to their portable games and rarely speak.
Of course, the parents played a part in enabling this. Their mom (my sis) will often suggest I buy them video games for their birthday/Christmas but I refuse to do that. What they need is a kick in the ass to get them outside.
> Even on rare occasions when they show up to family gatherings they've got their face glued to their portable games and rarely speak.
That's not video games though, that's the general digital addiction going on. And honestly, as a teenager I used to avoid everyone with books and I doubt anyone would have described me as addicted to a paper drug.
Stomping out my son's fortnite and overwatch addiction was obnoxiously difficult probably because of the stupid loot box and skin phenomenon.
He was failing out of school and had lost interest in sports. I put all of his Xbox controllers in a safe and if he wants to play games he has to maintain a straight a average and be playing at least one sport or have a after-school job.
Within about 2 weeks he was back on track at school and is now a straight a student again.
Obviously this is just an anecdote but I don't think he was suffering from any form of anxiety or anything like that. He got hooked on the games and then his brain was just unable to be excited by other things for a long time.
Very few things in the real world are as optimized as the playing experience and overwatch or the social aspects of fortnite.
Video game addiction (overuse) is a coping mechanism in the face of increased anxiety in the modern world.
I don’t think it directly causes issues as much as it enables or locks in certain behaviorally patterns such as being a NEET or similar. It’s really more of a symptom of a lack of support system in a person’s life, the same way social media overuse or drug abuse comes about.
Real addictions have severe physical consequences like chemical withdrawals that can lead to death.
I find that Self-Determination Theory is a good model to look at this with. Modern school and work life provide little autonomy, little relatedness, and little (desirable/appreciated) skill for the vast majority of people whereas video games do the opposite by providing essentially an ideal playground.
> Video game addiction (overuse) is a coping mechanism in the face of increased anxiety in the modern world.
You are stating this in absolute terms, which indicates to me that you have a solid source, or are an expert in the field. If so, can you please detail?
From my background working in psychiatry (in-patient) for six years, it is certainly not that clear.
> Real addictions have severe physical consequences like chemical withdrawals that can lead to death.
So the sex addicts I treated didn't have a "real" addiction?
The gambling addicts I treated didn't either?
Or the extreme adrenaline addicts?
Also, many experts in the field seem to disagree with you. See the proposed internet gaming disorder [1].
Genuinely curious: Is video game addiction different in kind to anorexia? My understanding is the latter is often a symptom of wanting control over something. I see getting stuck on video games the same way.
I would say they're different, because it's possible to remove a lot of the triggers associated with video games, gambling, alcohol, and drugs (by not having them easily accessible, for example) but it's not possible to do that with food.
I'm glad you responded because the person you were responded to exhibits typical thought patterns on addiction that I'm sure you are as frustrated by as I am.
People don't seem to understand that drugs like cocaine flood the brain with dopamine and that's exactly what these video games are designed to do by the psychologists the game companies hire. I don't get why people don't seem to understand that it's alarming when video game companies are hiring people from the gambling industry in Vegas.
I think "is it a cause or a symptom?" is a valid question and deserves serious thought. Upvoted.
I worried about my own son playing video games incessantly through his teens and twenties, but now at 28 he has been holding down a stable job for a year and I have got good reports from his employer. He's still a loner IRL though.
Would I worry so much if he were a gym rat or ultramarathoner-- an "exercise addict"? Good question.
You should worry about anyone with a sedentary lifestyle, regardless of whether they play video games or not. This has serious health consequences later in life.
But competing in a lot of ultramarathons isn't necessarily healthy for the long term either. In extreme cases athletes end up with heart muscle scarring and calcification. Somewhat shorter distances might be better. Everything in moderation.
I am also a father and I had to stomp out my son's video game addiction.
Frankly I don't think it's a major victory for a 28-year-old to have been gainfully employed for a year and still be a loner.
Being an introvert is one thing but not having a social network around you especially in your twenties is a very bad sign.
Too often people think that because their kid is introverted they shouldn't be alarmed by them not having a social network of any kind. The reality is that there are many many very healthy introverts who still have strong friendships with other people. I'm only saying this because I've seen too often people write off their children's bad lifestyle choices as simply being introverted.
I don't think I got so freaked out by video game addiction until working at my last company where we hired a bunch of people from the gaming industry. They were the ones who told me about how many top-notch behavioral psychologist are employed in the gaming industry to maximize the addictive potential of video games.
We can say what we will about exercise addicts but at least they are getting very healthy bodies and the highly positive mental health benefits of exercise. Plus when you're in a gym or if you are running trail marathons you are going to be doing so with other people who don't sit in there darkened rooms for days on end.
I'm trying to stomp out my son's video game addiction right now. The trouble is that online classes require a web browser, and there are lots of web games.
It's the parents fault for coddling them. If they kicked them out at 18, the nephews would definitely need to work and may realize the importance of having a better job/career.
I agree with this. I think it has something to do with my sister (their mom) being a single mom from the time they were 6, 8 years old till she remarried when they were teenagers and their stepfather not wanting to interfere too much in the parenting department.
Doesn't always work, video games are probably the cheapest addicting entertainment out there. Doesn't take much income to just survive and play video games all day long.
But at least they would be working, probably know how to drive a car, and may consider furthering their education/career when they realize how little they make for their time.
This is maybe a ridiculous question, but why is that so much better? If someone is able to live cheaply, why is it better for them to work in some menial, low-wage job versus being supported by a relative? I think something you have to consider is that if you have low social standing and are poorly educated, your options in life are not necessarily super appealing.
Consider that the limited resource may be mental, not temporal.
We don't expect everyone to be able to run a 10-minute mile, even though most people can. Likewise we shouldn't expect everyone to be able to hold down a 40+ hour-a-week job and "functional adult" life, even though most people can.
Who's to say that they'd remain in low-wage job? They may be wildly wealthy in the future. It's hard to know, since their potential is being squandered by the parents enabling this behavior.
What avenues would they have to realize their potential? College is obscenely expensive, a degree from a community college is afaik useless, rent prices are bonkers, and the job market for those without a degree is wage slavery.
I am suspecting that because of the lack of full employment a degree is just a hack to get first in line for the jobs that the economy is resentfully providing. If companies couldn't find enough workers they'd lower standards and offer training. It's precisely because they can find all the workers they could hope for that we have put the burden of training onto workers.
Yeah, one of my fears is we simply have too many people and too few jobs in this kind of economy. The lower birth rates are a gaia consciousness response to overpopulation in this respect
It's interesting that you don't mention trade schools and then apprenticeship. That's where I'd look, personally, and my impression is that people in the trades can make bank, especially if they eventually set up their own business.
not really, there's only so many tradesmen an area can support, and only union members get any real standard of living. Plus, there's the whole "destroying your body" thing; it's not computer scientists behind the opioid crisis, for example. Its drudgery, extremely hard work, and with a side order of ill health for the rest of your life.
I highly doubt that video games are solely to blame.
I was quite addicted to video games until my early 20s, but I eventually understood that gaming falls down the priority list as you take on more responsibilities in life. My friends were the same.
Definitely a symptom and not a cause. Like people that drink heavily in university then don't later once they have obligations.
My university roommate played video games nonstop. Then he graduated, got a job (as a video game developer) and has a wife and three kids. It's like any addiction, its filling a void, but the object of abuse is not what's to blame.
As you noted, it is likely that something went seriously wrong with raising them (coddling, over-helping, etc.). But you don’t need to be “kicked out” to start working on building your life and your career.
I meant being kicked out if the parents clearly see 0 desire from the child to further their education or get a job. I don't think there's anything wrong with people living with their parents if they're going to school or working.
But there is definitely something wrong with paying gaming computer for son who is old enough to work and dont. Or son who is old enough to clean and never does.
None of these stories have issue that started at 24. They all have parents enabling the kid ever since kid was 6.
At the same time, I see people leave home in their teens or 20s and work a series of crappy minimum wage jobs and never get a decent one with benefits, because they're busy surviving or don't see a better option.
An ideal situation requires pressure to succeed, while also providing resources and guidance to be successful.
Yep, I dropped out of school my sophomore year because I was working a job and I was prioritizing a social life I didn’t have in high school. 7 years later and I’m too busy surviving crappy jobs to go back to school, or I think that I would be too busy working to succeed in my coursework.
I deal with a lot of 18-19 year olds as my primary job is teaching first year engineering students.
I will tell you it is a LOT more complicated than this. This type of single point simplification and pronouncement about 'coddling' is decidedly unhelpful.
For starters, if you grow up in two working parent household, both parents can easily come home completely exhausted and unable to provide the extended engagement necessary to help a child develop. Add in the social pressures of school where EVERYONE has an iphone and games where it is socially isolating not to do these things - which carries its own set of risks. Add in a public education system that doesn't focus on development and instead focuses on learning material. Add in an economy designed to optimize extraction of capital from individuals through psychological programming and ads and more stuff to buy.
None of this has to have a single source of blame, much of its realistically structural and cultural. It isn't one bad actor or one failed thing...it is a large number of individuals, groups, and organizations individually performing Goodhart's law and the result is some get cast aside.
Fully agree with this for 18-19 year olds, but at some point (25? 30?) it really does seem like coddling, or enabling at least. At some point you have to move out and support yourself.
"Pamper, pander to". Perhaps it's a loaded word but as a parent who may some day be facing this situation (from the parent point of view) I feel like I'm justified in my judgement.
FWIW I do have friends that were forced out of the house at 18. At the time I was the same age and I thought it was harsh. Many years later though, I can see that it worked out just fine.
If the parents don't provide for them, what do you think would happen to the nephews? Do you think they would be homeless? I certainly don't.
The fact that the parents are providing a roof over their head and paying for their food/water/electricity/internet/clothes/games/etc is why they haven't had a job nor any desire for one well into their 30s.
Honestly, because the parents keep providing for them, there's no impetus for them to change, so they may as well do this into their 40s or 50s.
Minimum wage is enough to survive, and almost anyone that's not severely mentally/physically disabled can do most minimum wage work. In this case, it's not a matter of lack of ability, but lack of willingness.
That said, I have nothing against parents willing to provide housing/support if the child is working, still furthering their education, or need some help getting their feet back on the ground. But at this point, this is none of that, and just enabling their behavior.
The parents certainly can be enabling, but I think you're ignoring that there are plenty of people that are homeless, that do wind up with dependencies on alcohol, drugs like meth, etc, and your implication that anyone (especially people in their 30s with no real work history) can get full-time, minimum wage work doesn't seem realistic. Many of those jobs are both minimum wage and few enough hours per week (to avoid having to give you benefits, of course) that it would be extremely difficult to live independently, while still requiring a schedule that makes it nearly impossible to take on other jobs.
I'm in my 30s and have now seen several high school classmates with similarly poor prospects eventually succumb to drug overdoses.
Spiked rich kids are spoiled. If they weren't spoiled rich kids the parents would be risking homelessness by supporting a layabout who isn't paying rent.
James Dobson once said about a similar scenario, "your son doesn't have a problem, _you_ have problem." Meaning providing lodging and meals for someone who refuses to work is actually enabling on the part of the parents.
I think the term 'coddling ' is not the best. I grew up during the 90's in a hyper-controled environment by a macho dad and a passive mom. I was told to not become an artist, to not travel when I am young (waste of time), to learn how to drive a car, to get a job, get a degree, all that jazz. The thing is, at 32, I still have no sense of purpose in life.
When all the goals are chosen for you, it does not matter if you were over-protected or not. You cannot build true self esteem and confidence if you don't succeed and/or fail at a dream of your choice. There is no point learning to drive a car if you do not know where you want to go, to earn money if you don't know what you want to buy, and to get into a career if you have no sense of purpose.
Videogames are addictive not only because they are fun, they provide you with a goal and 'achievements'. In my humble opinion, sex for the sake of sex (real or porn), promotions for the sake of promotions or else are all caused by the same emotional male problem ; the inability to feel emotions and learn from them what is truly important for yourself. The % of young men in the labour force is just a symptom of that.
I was told that ''fiding your passion is stupid'', and that ''its better to become an unhappy physician than a happy artist''. Since I've hit the job market I've spent thousands of $ in therapy and many weekends in various spiritual activities to reorient my life. And I still my first burnout at 30.
My opinion now is that sense of purpose AND being able to support yourself are essential; you have cash balance to keep in check with the tribe, and an emotional balance to keep in check with yourself. An adult should be able to do both. I think that people who do the former without doing the later may succeed economically, but on the long run they drain everybody and subconsciously expect others to take care of their own emotions. My father was like that, and his own children don't call him 'daddy'.
I also think its a very male difficulty, because boys learn to suppress emotions at a young age. It makes it harder to find meaningful careers, but also to sustain relationships and to evolve in your spirituality. Men drop out of school, do not enter the workforce, and lament that tinder is unfair. In my humble opinion, it is a purpose problem, not a ''how do I clean my room'' problem.
I agree with your sentiment except for the « men unable to feel » thing. Emotions and sentiments are a fundamentally human thing and men feel too. However there is a social pressure on men to not show emotions and sentiments.
We fight patriarchy so that women are less pressured into being fragile and pretty housewives but we should also fight it so that men are less pressured to be emotionless hardworking robots who have to provide for their family.
He said, in a time of record unemployment and low wages that are impossible to live off of. Almost like there are other factors at play here than just men being lazy.
HN loves to forget that not everybody can be a FAANG employee or has the desire to sit in front of a computer writing code their whole lives.
From what I understand, the problem is not minimum wages, but unstable employment. You may be getting paid an acceptable amount but at the drop of a hat your employer will say that you aren't working next week which is much harder to cope with than earning less but knowing you will have x in the bank every week.
Big cities still need people to do the jobs that only pay minimum wage. There was a whole thing last year about how important those minimum wage workers are, but you've probably forgotten already.
Bullshit. Oklahoma has a 4% unemployment rate and a very low cost of living. Some other states are similar. Anyone who's willing to show up and work hard can survive there.
You have to consider that deciding to stay unemployed is one of the few remaining ways workers can strike nowadays. Most of them have zero power on the negotiating table but they still have some power by choosing to not work at all.
Colorado is expensive as anything to live in and is only getting more expensive. $18/hour is NOT a livable wage in Boulder. $35/hour is only 72k a year at full employment (unlikely as a contractor employee) and probably will not receive benefits. That is also not enough to live in Denver or Boulder with a family.
The jobs are out there AND DO NOT PAY ENOUGH TO LIVE IN THE AREAS THEY ARE IN.
And before some genius comes in and says "Well don't live in those expensive cities then", those expensive cities still want burgers and stocked store shelves and everything else, they just don't want to pay people enough to live off of.
I'm a male FAANG employee in my 30's living with my parents.
It's nice. My dad makes us lunches, my mom cooks dinners, and I do yardwork. My girlfriend lives a few miles away with her parents, who are great. We regularly eat with one family or the other, and we often sleep together at one house or the other. We use the family cars.
Except for the job, we'd be considered failures for this nice life.
It seems like you're not really starting adult life, and you're running out of years to do so. I started my 30's with 3 kids already, and ended my 30's with 9 kids. I bought a house. That house is my responsibility, without even an HOA. I don't have to ask mom for anything. I don't need parental permission. I got to pick the car I wanted to buy. If I feel like painting the house cyan or parking my car on the lawn, I can do so.
I don’t know this dude, and if you know he’s just scamming the system I’ll take your word for it, but when I’ve experienced serious physical pain I’ve found video games much more helpful than OTC painkillers.
I obviously don't know this person at all, but from what I know of how Social Security disability works, 22 is a really unlikely age to qualify. Are you sure it wasn't slightly earlier or later?
To be eligible in your own right, you have to have paid into Social Security for a total of 40 quarters before becoming disabled. Given child labor laws, it's rare that you could accumulate enough quarters before age 26 or so.
The other way is to be eligible on a parent's social security, as a "disabled child", which is defined as someone who became disabled before age 22. If you suffered a permanent disability at age 21, and have a parent who paid enough into SS to be eligible, you can receive "child" benefits from their account even as an adult: https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/disability/qualify.html#anchor7
This leaves an unfortunate gap for people who genuinely become permanently disabled due to an accident or medical condition that happens around age 22-25, because they can't qualify through either route.
>> To be eligible in your own right, you have to have paid into Social Security for a total of 40 quarters before becoming disabled
Looks like there are different rules for disability for young workers:
"To be eligible for disability benefits, you must meet a recent work test and a duration work test.
The number of credits necessary to meet the recent work test depends on your age. The rules are as follows:
Before age 24 - You may qualify if you have 6 credits earned in the 3-year period ending when your disability starts.
Age 24 to 31 – In general, you may qualify if you have credit for working half the time between age 21 and the time you become disabled. As a general example, if you become disabled at age 27, you would need 3 years of work (12 credits) out of the past 6 years (between ages 21 and 27).
Age 31 or older - In general, you must have at least 20 credits in the 10-year period immediately before you become disabled."
I find it so odd how society gets obsessed with boogeyman examples of people taking advantage of the system. There will always be some people who take advantage of the system. Accept that, keep it reasonable, but optimize the system for those who will improve it.
The flip side is this person is hurting society significantly less than some committing crimes - even worse crimes that are sentenced to jail time (which is very expensive).
From an environmental perspective, this kind of minimalist lifestyle actually seems quite healthy. They don't drive, and I assume they don't fly or buy a lot of stuff, so their carbon and other resource footprint is small. They don't take up much extra space, so they reduce suburban sprawl and land required for housing. They probably won't have kids, which further reduces their environmental impact. Maybe we should encourage more people to live this way.
> Maybe we should encourage more people to live this way.
Sounds like an episode of Black Mirror. Life is meant to be lived; the purpose of life is at least eudaimonia, not slowly rotting away in front of a computer.
You can write books, compose music, build software, debate opinions all in front of a computer. It’s not the sitting in front of the computer that’s the problem.
Not everything would agree. Most of the life on the planet's only hope is to be around long enough to reproduce and then be consumed in one way or the other. Humanity puts a lot of pressure on itself to flourish.
That usage of "lived" is a romanticization. It's the grandparent telling the starry-eyed children about the good old times, glossing over the decades of toil and hardship.
Many video games similarly skip time to focus on heroic moments. You don't role-play the 10,000 hours studying tomes at Hogwarts to become a 1st level wizard; instead you start the adventure at graduation, or at most do a training montage.
> That usage of "lived" is a romanticization. It's the grandparent telling the starry-eyed children about the good old times, glossing over the decades of toil and hardship.
Nah, the grandparent knows exactly well the good old times were the decades of toil and hardship. The kids won't get it if the grandparent tells these core truths anyways, until they live it.
Well, perhaps they find the virtual life more compelling than the real one...
The problem is sustainability.
A virtual life cannot sustain itself indefinitely, and is not very robust. If money runs out or a tragedy occurs, it will be a scramble to get a job and interact in the real world. A virtual life does not contribute to society (if we mean a purely passive virtual life), and if people start adopting it en masse we'd be in trouble.
As far as I can see, we could simply try create a virtual life (or any kind of activity) that both is sustainable, and gives an interesting, engrossing life experience.
In the future, it may even be more efficient to hook them up to a large computer that is able to use them as a power source, too. We could offer them a virtual reality completely indistinguishable from reality.
The problem is it's hard to get right. I saw a documentary where people broke out of the dream and it caused all sorts of issues, they were able break out other people using pills and teach them to fly and other unrealistic things.
Not after they were around 6 and 8. Their mom remarried when they were in their teens. So yeah, probably that's part of the problem. But their biological father was also quite lazy and never had a job for very long (part of the reason she left him, that and he did a good bit of gaslighting) so it's not like he was a great example for them to follow (In fact, last I heard he was living with his parents and he's well into his 50s).
I’m not keen on giving a pass that easily. The US education system is decent, and if they can read and write, and have access to internet and a stable home, it’s on them at some point to take it initiative.
My twin brother and I grew up without a biological father, were very independent at an early age, and both have high-paying jobs in faang. Both well-adjusted, multiple relationships, successful, etc.
I see a lot of Jordan Peterson-esque BS professing these “no biological father == neet” rules, and I’m not saying that’s the point you’re leading with your question, but am jumping at any opportunity to dispel it, just in case.
and someone can successfully complete high end raids in world of warcraft despite being a paraplegic. Doesn't mean everyone should be able to do so or its too easy to raid. Don't view outliers and your own experience as standard; high achievers do this way too often and end up discounting the real difficulty and struggles in accomplishing such a thing.
An irony that is not lost on me is that high achievers often have their own problems that they would know about if they and society wasn’t so keen to dismiss the problems of others. I was told I was lazy when I couldn’t keep up with the other kids physically (just exercise more), and I thought they were lazy when other kids couldn’t keep up with me mentally (just study more). Turns out it was hEDS. It would have been nice to have figured that out 25 years earlier, the damn thing near ruined my life.
Right, but the point I’m making is being raised without a father is not the (to take your example) paraplegic-level setback some in the red pill camp seem to think it is.
It’s not even an outlier experience, either. Even among high achievers. Consider that ~50% of African American NBA players and ~20% of white NBA players come from a single parent household. [0]
Curious, do you think the parent poster was saying that fatherless households actually give rise to paraplegics somehow? If not, why not respond to the actual argument with relevant data, rather than responding to strawmen arguments with NBA participation rates? Just seems like a very odd piece of data to bring up unless you can provide evidence that NBA participation rates are representative of overall well-being for the metrics under discussion.
Well as prospective adoptive father... In some ways... Yes. That was part of our adoption training. To learn that many adoptees want to know their biological mom and dad and suffer greatly if they're not able. An adoptive father can provide all the emotional support in the world and the day to day fathering, but he can't provide the biology, whereas a biological one can provide both the day to day fathering and the bio connection.
It's not a popular sentiment... But it was required as part of our certification in california. When separated from mom and dad, they call it the primal wound, but our society accepts separating children from one parent without any of the guilting they require adoptive parents to go through.
From a purely empirical standpoint, in aggregate, biological father's are the least likely to hurt or kill their children. Both adoptive father's and step father's are more likely to. Says nothing about individuals, but as a society it would behoove the powers that be to ensure most kids are raised by bio parents. And by far most states adopt this approach, even to the point of absurdity.
I appreciate the frustration, and why this got shared, but realistically...this is the current observation and gives so little data about how we got here that I worry about the comments attributing blame to your post.
Two distant family members of mine fit this description fairly well...One was raised in an unstable, low income household, with mentally ill parents, is on the autism spectrum, and both parents worked multiple jobs that included overnight shifts. There was no ability, energy, or understanding to seek assistance and intervention early enough to make a difference. The other family member comes from effectively the complete opposite end of each one of those variables.
My 45 year old sister is that way now and to a lesser extent my older brother was too. I lost _decades_ of sleep over their situation.
Ultimately I didn't know anything when I left home at 18 and I figured it out. Other people can too. How long does it take to learn how to drive, open a checking account, cook, pay bill, etc. after all ? You can learn these things privately over the Internet so there's no longer a social stigma holding you back. To digress, I eventually taught my older brother responsibility, job skills (he worked at my business), how to file taxes, basic math, etc. He became even more bitter and resentful and then one day broke down and admitted how painful it is to know nothing useful and most of what he does know he had to learn from his little brother. But eventually he started just Googling instead of calling me when he had a question he should know the answer to.
I truly feel sorry for these lost souls and if I hadn't been naturally good at math, I'd likely be one of them.
I want to comment on your brother’s reflection that he was in pain, bitter, and resentful that he did not have useful knowledge/skills and needed your help.
There is an incredible amount of shame and self-directed anger and fear in men who have found themselves in this position.
All of those feelings are heavy to carry, but they can be shoved aside and ignored by constant entertainment (video games, tv binges etc). Shoved aside they don’t hurt as bad.
But those feelings don’t go away. They get bigger as each year goes on & they flare up when confronted with having to do something they aren’t capable of doing (or think they aren’t capable) like moving out, getting a job, getting a better job, having an adult relationship etc.
Those feelings of inadequacy have to be taken on and grace & forgiveness has to be granted to oneself in order for them to spread their wings / leave the nest and not come back.
For me, the question is how do you get someone so deep into a dark emotional morass to take on the emotional dragons they’ve been hiding from?
You're not wrong generally, but this one costs about $1000 where I live, which is close to average national monthly salary and approximately twice the minimum salary.
Not pocket change for someone who has trouble finding work (and many jobs require driver's license).
Just to add to the story. My sister claimed for 10+ years she had the DMV book and just needed to study it before getting her permit. She said this repeatedly to my father and brother and no one questioned her. For 10+ years.
Then a year ago I just called a driving school near my parents house on her behalf. I offered to pay for everything including study time and taxi rides to and from the school. Whatever it took. She said she still needed more time to read the book, but I said the school would help her. So when the time finally came to schedule a pickup time, she texted me and just said that she isn't interested in learning to drive.
So that basically ended our relationship since this lie was too much. Now the only lever I have left is shunning her for her irresponsible life-style choices that put a burden on others. It has had no effect on her but at least I sleep better.
Is someone enabling this behavior in her life? My sister is the same way. My parents enabled her for a decade. Now she is 34 and has minimal life skills and no real job skills to speak of. She just works at a day care. It is a tragedy, but my parents bail her out every time and they barely have many resources themselves. My sister can at least drive and has mostly had a job for a few years now... but that is a recent development.
It sounds to me like none of your family does a very good job of understanding her. The behavior you describe sounds much less like someone who is uninterested in driving and more like someone who has significant anxiety around that activity that they are surpressing.
So at no point did anyone figure that she was experiencing pathological amounts of anxiety around learning to drive, and most likely other ordinary activities? That sounds to me like an issue mental healthcare professionals help address.
Yeah I agree with the poster that said she is scared of driving. I'm guessing the excuse that she needed to read the book was either her using an excuse to self deceptively avoid facing her fear or just an attempt to save face by not saying how fearful she was.
Would your tune be any different if they were 34, staying at home all day playing video games, but somehow earning half a million dollars a year doing some "gamer" Twitch/Patreon/YouTube/influencer streaming schtick? Or, better yet, playing video games all day, but magically manage to make obscene amounts of money "trading cryptocoins" . Would their lifestyles suddenly become acceptable to you, simply because they are "making money" off of their sedentary lifestyle ?
I think this would somewhat validate his “prepared for life” argument because if they have a lot of money they can provide for themselves (food and transport is pretty easy with the gig economy).
(The previous comment used to include something about people wanting to quit their jobs and just play games all day)
For your point about playing games all day — there’s definitely some aspect of “having a purpose” that makes some hold down a job even if they are already rich. So for some it’s definitely their life dream to sit in their room all day, and for some having something that you can point to saying “I contributed this” is an invaluable part of their lives
I think if they were working from home it would, obviously, be a different story. They could stash some cash away and be able to care for their aging parents in the future.
Being an influencer is an enormous amount of work. Sure, one could build a brand around games, but maintaining that brand is constant effort, even though the audience rarely sees it.
The people you talk about work awful lot and burn out. Attracting and keeping audience is hard, just playing wont make people watch it regularly. You are entertainer there. And you constantly deal with harassement and bs.
It's interesting how few (I haven't actually seen any) of the comment replies are addressing the parents. I'd probably put equal onus on the parents to have better parented their children into adulthood.
I had the same life till my 26th. I then stopped watching television, threw all games away and started studying computer science. I am so happy about that move. I am 40 now. Own multiple IT businesses and have a happy family.
Game/TV addiction is really dangerous. You don't have to be a depressed person to fall into it.
For some people (myself included) Game/TV addiction is a real problem and can have drastic affects on ones life. (It did for me throughout my 20s/30s). For others it doesn't seem to have negative side effects.
My life was held back by time spent gaming for so long and later in life I realized TV was doing the same. Moderation in all things right? For me it is easier to cut them out period.
I'm happier and have a far more productive life as a result. I'm now in my 40s and have productive life and career but this didn't start until my mid 30s.
I'm in my mid 30s and I am going through this addiction of reddit/youtube and other distractions for the past 10 years. I've always known how harmful it is and I want to change. Do you have any tips for someone like me? I was still able to become an engineer, but I feel like I can be better. Like everyone else my motivation and drive was so much higher when I was younger. I might be using these distractions as a form of escapism for my depression.
Humans inevitably become more creative and/or social to escape boredom. See what you're drawn to when you cut out media consumption. You can always go back to reddit after a few months if you've just been bored the entire time.
It's not easy for sure. In my case I found a girlfriend and started living somewhere else. So another change in life helps a lot.
Maybe you could search for something like that. Go live in another city albeit for a temporary period.
A pet programming job might also help. You might be still behind the pc. But at least it is not wasted with just gaming, movies etc. You could also try to search for a coach/psychologist who can support you going to the change process. Go for it. You will be rewarded.
Speaking as a lifelong addict (started with likely an addiction to breastfeeding), if you're anything like me from a mental predisposition standpoint, all you have to do is stay an addict! It's that simple. There's nothing wrong with addiction, and I would argue, it's likely a survival mechanism. The trick is, form "healthy" addictions, along with the vices, assuming you need to keep some vices kicking around to stay sane. It took me until I had kids and could watch them develop, to realize I've been an addict like everyone else in my family, my whole life. It happened to be addictions to things like playing basketball, doing martial arts, exercising, making music, learning UNIX and systems internals, raising and growing food, wood milling and working, growing and smoking weed, reading everything I could, etc. etc. etc. I've been flipping from one addiction to another since 1-2 years old, and learning all along the way, often with outstanding end products produced due to my obsessive nature. Embrace it, and learn when it's time to move on. It will take time, and flipping to a new addiction is always a bit anxiety-inducing (but so is learning anything new!).
Addiction is fascinating because the distribution of outcomes is so broad across users. Damn near anything can be life-debilitatingly addictive to some segment of people while others can consume it with absolutely no problems.
Psychology obviously can't always be simplified, but I think a key component underlying when consumption goes in a bad direction is why someone is using.
If you're playing videogames because your life is otherwise fine and you want to sprinkle some leisure on top, it's fine. Hell, you can play for hours a day and it's not really a problem if you're content with the time spent.
But if you're playing videogames as an avoidance strategy for underlying psychological problems, then you're setting yourself up for addiction. Because avoidance tends to cause those problems to grow. You aren't working on them, and seeing yourself avoid them subconsciously sends a signal that the problem is too big for you to handle. So the whole time you're avoiding, you're building it up bigger and bigger.
Just want to add, you can be addicted to any number of other things to suit your avoidance needs.
I have hope for people who are addicted to video games though, because I know they have obtained the knowledge/capability to figure out the underlying metagames and redeploy those skills to other areas of their life. And judging by the anecdotes on this thread it looks promising.
Now imagine if they're addicted to drugs; They'll be having another health problem to resolve. If you have a choice of being addicted to something at least let it be video games.
I personally new almost a dozen people who flunked out of college due to playing MMO games. Probably at least partly my nerdy cohort, but it was more than the total of depression and/or substance abuse combined.
I've worked a bunch of jobs over the years where i've ended up being in the homes of a lot of middle class - upper class people, not that it doesn't happen with working class people too, but anyway a common thing i would see was young men my own age or older living at home with their parents, not employed.
I remember one lady in particular tried desperately to see if we could get her son a job. He'd taken a crane operator course but was scared of heights. He wouldn't even come in the room or speak with us.
The thing is, this guy didn't even seem to help at home. His mom had went out and mowed the entire very large, very sloped front yard before she came in to ask us about a job for her son. He sat in the basement the whole time.
Or the time on a weekday afternoon, dude comes out in his jimjams yelling at his mom to make breakfast while she's trying to deal with us in her kitchen which was mostly not usable.
Then there was all the people in that age range i worked with who would last less than a week. People who'd show on their first day and immediately ask when break time was or people who'd just walk out half way through the day or people who'd just straight up say they don't care and they'd rather be at home smoking weed.
Anyway, this got a bit ranty, i've got plenty more stories from over the years. Suffice to say, this is a trend i've seen a lot over the years first hand.
As a person who is in this age range and in essentially the opposite position--my disabled mother and college age sister live with me in coastal California--the kind of thing you're describing with the guy who wouldn't come out of the room is bonkers. I know this kind of person exists as an archetype but between your anecdote and the article I'm just baffled at the apparent prevalence.
I guess part of it is the fact that my circumstances didn't even make that lifestyle an option. By my late teen years it was increasingly obvious that I had to go in the kind of direction I did if I wanted my family to have a decent life. If I had a middle class nuclear family, is it likely that I would've tore through CS classes and leetcode as much as I did? I kinda doubt it.
I felt bad writing that seemingly picking on the middle-upper class, because as much as I've seen that there...the worst example I know of is not that.
A family member of mine has not ever had a job. Everyone has tried to help him. I've given him two jobs at two different companies personally. His mom works at a dollar store and a cheap clothing store just to pay rent. She begs him to work. He spends all his time playing Xbox. She's gotten to the point where she's going to kick him out and move in with her other son. He's responded by drinking and hanging out with homeless junkies. Thank fuck as far as i know he hasn't started doing the strange purple heroin they do nowadays apparently and shit. But it's really terrible watching this. He's almost 30. There's no reason this should be happening.
Our neighbors kid doesn't work, in early twenties, lives with mother. I was trying to sell my house and needed tons of lawn work. I was able to get a quote for $650 which seemed high.
So I did what I would have wanted. I walked over to the neighbor kid and asked "Would you take $550 to fix up our lawn?". He looked at me like I was an alien. He said one word, "no", then awkwardly walked away.
I would have killed to get a job offer like that in my early twenties, probably two days of work for $550! Would have grabbed a friend, six pack of beer and finished it -- that day -- and used the money for books!
It seems like an excessive pay, so maybe he thought it would be a lot of work. Have you had interactions with him before? He might have just not wanted to engage with you
I’m 35 and burnt out by working almost nonstop since I was 14… I have something to show for it, but I don’t care anymore and would rather live like your nephews.
I was able to move out after 5 years working as a software developer and my bf also getting a full time developer job. But I recognize I am in the top few % at my age and would not blame anyone for staying with their parents for longer. Especially if they were building up savings to help them in life.
I don't even understand how this happens. I was kicked out of home at 16. Neither of my parents would have allowed me to stay at home until my thirties.
Then again, I'm a father now and I can't imagine ever asking my daughter to leave home. But I would definitely expect her to have a job and contribute to household expenses well before her 30's.
Well maybe they're smart enough to know that, in a world where most things have either been automated or offshored, the only purpose most jobs serve in the grand scheme of things is to increase the velocity of capital. If you had a choice between the fake purpose offered by an office job where you get to be a peon, versus the fake purpose offered by a video game where you get to be a hero: which would you choose?
I may be projecting here but your nephews, if they are like some of my relatives, may not be neurotypical (for example they may have Aspergers disorder). If this is the case their behavior may be better understood in that context that a social one.
My friend's brother is like this. It's pretty obvious upon talking to him that he has some kind of atypical neurology but his parents completely refuse this, and thus keep him trapped in his little bubble without getting any help.
I want to put some blame on people's focus on university education here. Every guy I've met in this type of situation is someone that isn't stupid, but they don't excel in academia either. Their family treats them like crap because they didn't go to university or dropped after they got there. They become depressed because they compare themselves to their "smarter" peers who appear to have everything worked out are doing great in life. Constantly pushing someone towards university when it's maybe not the best idea for them, then calling them a loser when they bomb out just engenders learned helplessness in the individual. Then people why these individuals stop trying.
This is the trap of social media and why many people would be healthier and happier if they were able to live & be present in the moment without their phone.
Plenty of people will read this comment and think that is not them but if there is not a point in your day when your phone is not on you, out of sights and out of reach for at least an hour you're not as "present" as you think.
I see this a good bit. And it is hard to get into the psychology of the individuals. I would work any job I could get if I was unemployed. I have taken retail jobs when I was unemployed or we could use extra income. My wife has done the same.
A few people I know come to mind that reminds me of your nephews and I simply cannot understand it. Right now there are hiring signs up in almost every business in my town. I would rather work (if I could) than take unemployment even if it would be a pay cut.
I'm trying to get my son and his girlfriend to live at home for a few years post graduation. He wants to move out into a place in seattle. She's a bit more about saving money. The math is that they'd have all loans paid off and a 200k down payment about 4 years out of college if they live with us, and they'd have loans paid off if in 4 years and < 15k savings if they moved to a smaller condo.
Important side note: they're both major home bodies so they wouldn't take advantage of living in a cool neighborhood.
To me it makes such massive sense to just bum it in their seperate upstairs 800sqft apartment and cheap food/rent/etc to bootstrap their lives instead of moving out. But it's a fight.
Luckily so far she's moved him from being very much in the NEET camp to actually looking for a job. But covid completely nerfed my ability to push him to have a job last summer (his pre-junior summer).
$185k/48 = $3.85k in monthly costs saved by not living independently. I can see it as being possible in Seattle, but on the high end. I would assume comparable abodes to sharing your parents house would be cheaper.
I also would not have wanted to stay with my parents in my 20s though, at least not with my specific parents.
Yeah $200k of savings in 4 years is maybe $40k/yr of savings, plus optimistic investment returns for the first 3 years. But GP also mentioned all loans paid off, so that adds another $10-20k/yr, depending on what their loans look like.
It's not impossible to save that much money straight out of school, but if you're making that much then you could still save a decent chunk even if you're paying $2k/mo for an apartment (which comes to $100k over 4 years).
Several of my young amazon coworkers had 500-800k at 4 years out of college with the stock going up. One basically retired (he is very frugal and allergic to everything and never goes outside) at 4.5 years.
Sounds like it was only the man who wasn't inclined to work, and that the woman has been changing that tendency, as well as presumably having a decent income of her own that's being considered here. So something north of 50K after tax per year for a two-income couple isn't too ridiculous by any means.
185K delta between the two scenarios feels wrong, though - that's almost 4k a month, an astonishing high rent bill for a couple just out of college. The "find an apartment on their own for 1-2K, maybe even with roommates, but ideally just in a cheaper area" option should be seriously considered compared to living at home. Get a bunch more savings AND some very valuable life experience!
One end is living at home with a faang job. The other is them living on cap hill with around 3800 / month expenses and the 58k income you mentioned. The 3800 is her estimate which checks out.
There are obviously many more options in the decision matrix but this is a HN post :)
It's quite easy. He's a creative writing major. His girlfriend however has a good shot as a FAANG job. Running an Amazon / Microsoft / etc Seattle SDE1 job with no raises, at $120k a year, 27k in loans and $9k / year in room/board at our house == ~275k. Of which over 4 years, 90k is a lot to spend over the top for 2 kids who don't leave the house and only want pc upgrades.
Versus them spending about $4k/month on living expenses out of house, 48k/year.
That's also assuming she has a FAANG job, not say, the same expenses but $58k/year starting data eng job.
They should be able to find a nice 1br in Seattle for 20-25k/yr. Even in the most expensive neighborhoods it shouldn’t be more than 30k. Your numbers are higher than I’d expect
many parents contribute to their children's first downpayment, if you can't or aren't interested then just leave the discussion.
they don't have consensus on wanting to live with you while you believe they have the skillsets to save $200,000 in 4 years. who gives af if there is a theoretical savings optimization possible, that's not your problem stop acting like it is.
you are going to have an empty nest, you'd be better off admitting thats what you are avoiding instead of acting like your concern is their savings potential, which is just coincidence. sure, I could be way off, but the constant is that you already gave them the support system to integrate into society, this seems largely successful so don't worry about those choices.
let the homebody go have the option of trying IPAs at all the microbreweries in walking distance. not your problem.
This conversation is about college aged 22-28 year olds who have been under the care and advisement of their parents far far after their 18th birthday.
PERSONAL RANT YOU DON'T NEED TO READ, BUT I NEED TO WRITE:
I will add something to your son's point: being independent from my family was more important to me than saving money, especially if their loans are only 4 years away from being paid off. In fact, it bootstrapped all kinds of good behaviors around how to socialize with others, make friends, find a job, fix my own toilet, do laundry, pay taxes, find a new hair stylist, shop for clothes, etc etc etc.
It gave me the independence to move even further, and find work paid literally 10x more in a few years. No amount of saving would make up for that.
I can't imagine how much more stagnate my life would be if I had done the "smart thing" and put my life on pause instead of doing what I wanted from the get go. Death is much less stressful to think about when you're living aligned with your goals and values.
As someone in a similar situation as OP's son (although undergrad) and looking to move out...
Independence and personal space MATTER, please consider how your son may feel about living close to you. It may hurt, but it's important to understand the mindset behind the decision.
agreed. I moved out as soon as I could support myself. it wasn't because I hated my parents; they're pretty good as far as parents go. I feel like it's hard to actually be an adult when you live with your parents.
as an example, my dad used to always ask when he could expect me home when I went out. not being nosy, he just had a certain "night lock up" routine for the house. it wasn't an unreasonable question to get from a man who was paying for my housing and food, but it was a question I no longer wanted to answer at that point in my life.
Yeah I'm trying to figure out where I'm essentially asking the same things of him and putting pressure on him. But I've also been in completely hands off mode for the entire pandemic.
This is my two cents, living at home with my parents full-time since the pandemic started.
Living near them 24/7 made me reflect much about my behavior around them and my desire for independence. Living together can become rough when trying to get privacy and even small differences in opinion/lifestyle can turn into intoxicating moments.
e.g. during breakfast my parents discuss their political opinions and I honestly disagree with all of them. I stay quiet to prevent controversy, but it’s one of those moments that ruin your morning.
They’ve been very hands off as well, but some micro interactions can get grating over long periods of time. It’s just parenting stuff.
TLDR: I’m extremely grateful for my parents and their unwavering support during the pandemic. We’ve grown closer together as a family and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. However, this experience reinforced my desire to move and forge my own path, away from them or their judgement.
I had a pretty rough time between the years 2004 and 2016. I dropped out of college for a career track I dreamt about since childhood and I didn't know what to do with my life. I had no job experience and the recession hit also.
If you live in a small country, where everyone is related on average 2.5 degrees away to a random person, it's pretty hard to get a job if you don't have any family connections. After several years I managed to get a warehouse and courier job through a crazy family connection with some boss of a firm. I enrolled in college again in 2010 and then went to work abroad to gain some credibility in my field. The job abroad was paid well, but soul-crushing, so a few months ago I found a job in my field at home for half the salary.
The boss at my firm doesn't understand the concept of remote work. I did the job interview with my mask on and when there were hard restrictions on moving between cities in my country, so I had to have a signed document with me if the policed stopped me. I got my second shot 2 weeks ago and I'm working as usual.
And a similarly insane number of applicants. Anecdata, but I recently hired for an entry level position at my company and received far more applications than when hiring for the same role a year and a half prior. Lots of applicants who graduated a year ago and have yet to find work.
Albeit not exactly helpful, I just wanted to thank you for sharing this. Also not American, and I'm too in a pretty dark place right now. I gave up the opportunity of attending a undergrad program I dreamed of at a uni I dreamed of for years, and am sorta lost now. I have a degree in computer science so will be able to get some job (although I never really liked the industry) once my savings run out eventually. But this is really not where I hoped I would be just 2-3 years ago. I also don't play video games (but don't judge people who do of course)
what do these young men have to look forward to in life? home ownership and having a family probably seem so financially out of reach that kids are not even trying.
I'd suggest this represents the dividing line between Millennials and Generation Z.
Millennials (at least those who graduated before the 2008 financial crisis) had legitimate aspirations of home ownership, starting a family, and achieving the typical American Dream milestones. Many of them have not given up those dreams, despite numerous setbacks. On the other hand, Generation Z never had those aspirations in the first place. They don't expect to ever own a home. They understand the nuclear family is financially unreachable. Life milestones after university graduation by and large do not exist for Gen Z kids.
The nuclear family was a stupid idea anyway, putting the necessity of income over the necessity of an (extended) family. Children are not supposed to be raised by a single pair of mother and father, that's not how humans have evolved to grow up. Humans have always been raised by the extended family and only in the last two-hundred years we've invented this crazy concept of a 'nuclear family'.
Definitely a good list, but I'd add a few more that just aren't around as much anymore. Things like spear-hunting mega fauna, traveling with the great herds and just enjoying the endless bounty of nature. The world was once much wilder and more abundant with major species. Lions in Europe etc. But yeah, we had so much fun chasing those critters around, we drove a lot of them to extinction and now must satisfy ourselves with video games to sublimate some of our hunter-gatherers instincts.
I have a very multicultural background, but the dominant cultural view, at least when it comes to money, is Chinese.
For us, living at home is not failure. Moving out without planning to start a family if you live in the same city as your parents is considered wasting money. You instead use it as an opportunity to save a pile of money and invest.
How much of this is just cultural change? It isn't failure to launch. It is wanting to launch with a larger rocket with more fuel.
I grew up in a school district with median household income >$100k. Several schools had blue ribbon awards from the federal department of education. There were still families where kids were given 30 days notice to move out upon turning 18. Some families were under so much financial pressure the parents wanted the kids to drop out of high school at 16 and work.
Caucasian, US born male here. IMO, Western culture is less suited to many of the challenges of the modern world. I don't want to imply that Asian culture is somehow flawless, but there is quite a bit the west can learn if it wants to be efficient and stable in the near future.
My half-baked thought is that you can look at world population growth over time(https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth) and note that East and SE Asian population density has been higher for much longer than in the west. It stands to reason that either some aspects of culture have adapted to this, or that the population density somewhat results from a conducive cultural factor. Obviously it's much more complicated than that, but I hope I've made my point.
That said, I think there are forces at work which are putting special pressure on young people today. Whether it is related to declining testosterone, cultural shifts against traditional masculinity and success, negative information overload, cheap and ubiquitous entertainment and distractions, economic forces... I don't know. I think it's good to note that living at home isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there does seem to be something more insidious affecting our youth today.
> Caucasian, US born male here. IMO, Western culture is less suited to many of the challenges of the modern world. I don't want to imply that Asian culture is somehow flawless, but there is quite a bit the west can learn if it wants to be efficient and stable in the near future.
Especially to the economic situation of middle and lower class individuals. For most young people, it is simply __impossible__ to replicate even the family situations their parent generation had with a stay at home wife rearing the children and a breadwinning father -- simply because the real wage stagnation has made it impossible to finance a family without at least two 'good' incomes. Staying in the family home during university perhaps until marriage at age 30, this amounts to 10 years of more efficient spending on rent/mortgage, bills and other shared appliances. Having an extra $100k saved up at age 30 this way can make and break a family project.
Upper middle with >$500k household income at age 30-50 and above likely are in a better economic spot than they have ever been in and not really comparable to the plight of the commons.
All of the necessities are less and less attainable day by day.
House prices are rising out of control.
College education is extremely expensive, and jobs require more and more degrees and credentials.
Dating apps are heavily biased towards women.
But entertainment at home is more attainable than ever! Cheap high speed internet, a plethora of fun games to play, tons of people online to socialize with.
Video game addiction is a real problem. I spent my freshman year of college rooming with man-children who played video games non-stop. They didn't explore the city, they didn't meet new people, they just played video games in the dark, screaming into their headsets and eating their takeout at their desk. People can certainly have a healthy, fruitful relationship to video games but since then I haven't felt the need to touch a game.
Not a psychologist, but I would guess that playing games at all times is more a symptom than a cause. A symptom of depression? A coping mechanism for chronic anxiety? A happy well adjusted person does not try so hard to escape reality or responsibilities.
Demeaning them by calling them man-children is not going to help them in the slightest.
Depression is often characterised by a struggle in finding the motivation / desire to do something you love: if they love video games and can play them 12 hours a day, it's very possible they simply... don't care about the outside world. A job, family, exploring the world, these are all things some people just don't like. They don't have to have mental illness in order to spend their lives doing one thing!
I disagree, it's an mental illness if it interferes in your desired pursuit. For example, there is nothing wrong with playing games ur whole life.. except if you decide you want to get a girlfriend and can't. Now you're dealing with a mental illness.
Also if it interferes with your health, and a few other things. If playing video games takes precedence over, say, taking regular showers, or even basic exercise? I'd call that a mental illness too.
But I agree with the main point: “person wants to live in a way I don't like” is not mental illness.
Tell that to the vast majority of humans throughout history who not only did 1 thing their whole life, but did the same thing their parents did before them. In some cultures to this day, trying to do anything other than what your family has already established as the family business is viewed as disrespectful and an insult to your lineage.
And a virtual world can be every bit as varied. You see someone sitting at a computer playing the same video game all the time. They see farming, running dungeons with guild mates, forming relationships, crafting things, fighting wars and so on.
Defining a metal illness is non trivial, but for starters, their mental state needs to cause them or someone else harm or discomfort. But it's also possible that the discomfort isn't caused by their mental state, but the society they are in who rejects them.
In 1000 years no one will remember what that person in their virtual world did any more than you know what a random person 1000 years ago did, but if they feel every bit as accomplished and emotionally fulfilled, then what's the difference?
Now if their involvement in their virtual world means they are unable to sustain themselves in the physical world (not showing up to work, health problems, etc) then we have a problem that needs addressing. But living in a virtual world, in and of itself, is perfectly valid.
Except none of those things is actually happening. Its like saying playing Monopoly is the same as being a real estate magnate. It just isn't, and emotionally the people using the video game as a crutch know it.
Depression also manifests with addictions though through self medication like alcohol, drugs, and even video games. It gets trickier with comorbidities like ADHD where one has addictive tendencies resulting in what appears to be simple lack of motivation and laziness at a surface level.
As someone who has chronic anxiety and depression, for me it goes both ways. I do it as a coping mechanism, but doing it too much also worsens it. When I do things like go outside or make an effort to see people it goes down.
Completely agree calling someone a man-child does not help. We would condemn that kind of language said about woman.
I understand that addiction is borne out of mental illness, feelings of inadequacy, etc., but it’s really hard for me to be sympathetic when I had to go to sleep to them pathetically screaming like little children into their headsets for a year
I had a period of time where I was pretty hooked, to the detriment of my studies. I don't think I was coping or escaping; at nineteen they were very intricate yet offered a clear progression to mastery. As a young adult, you haven't had the chance to develop mastery yet (which everyone hungers for) and nobody has given you the keys to something really complex before.
Biggest reason I moved on, I think, was quite simply that my horizons rapidly broadened. So, before passing judgement, I'd want to see what became of these young men in a few years time first.
I know people are different and I'm not wired the same way, but I have trouble understanding how people can play games for more than a few hours a week.
Games like Pac Man and Tetris are algorithmic workloads. It's not much different than driving a semi or forklift, except you're not paid by a company for the work you do. It puts human brains closer to acting and performing as algorithmic worker bee agents.
Modern AAA titles are the same thing, just with more degrees of freedom.
I understand that there are dopamine triggers, but game engines subject players to the same repetitive thing over and over until the game ends. Kill this thing, collect 12 pelts, etc. There aren't very many variations on this theme, either. I can't grapple with how this squares with the limited time we have in life.
I think the best argument from my perspective is that Animal Crossing has you literally working to pay off a fake mortgage to buy digital items you don't need. You shouldn't stress out over a game.
I've enjoyed games for their mood, setting, music, and narrative, but gameplay itself is work. I'd rather just have a movie or narrative story. I already work too much.
I think the point is you actually have to do stuff (often menial collect n of thing tasks) to advance the plot. once the suspension of disbelief is broken, you are no longer a valiant hero saving the kingdom. you are pushing buttons to complete arbitrary tasks that trigger the next cutscene. if you don't enjoy the core gameplay, why not just cut out the tedium and watch tv or a movie?
> why not just cut out the tedium and watch tv or a movie?
Well, I would dispute it is tedium (particularly compared with watching a modern Hollywood production, and particularly watching TV) - I like exploring and finding new and strange areas of the world.
That’s your problem. Repetition, mindlessness, boredom, flow are different facets of the same phenomenon. When your ancestors needed to build a shelter, they spent hours and hours chopping, hewing, digging, etc etc. Birds have nests, bees have hives, beavers have dams; the list goes on and on. It’s perfectly normal to find some amount of busywork soothing.
You hit your cap at work; others don’t. There are also those with real addictions where it inhibits their ability to accomplish other goals, but that’s true of tons of habits that scratch the same itch.
Not to mention, many jobs actively encourage this busywork grind, giving out more money for more grinding. So you get trained to chase the rabbit, but then you lose your job or something happens that makes it harder for you to get employed and you are left satisfying these ingrained habits any way you can, just so you don't go nuts. Video games can fill that need for grinding and give a feeling of virtual progress, but they aren't necessarily the source for that drive in humans. I blame school and work for training us to be this way, like a Skinner box. I don't blame young men for getting hooked on video games, even though it can become an unhealthy coping mechanism.
I kinda agree with you. as I get older, more games feel like repetitive work than fun. I think I finish some games more because I want to feel like I got my money's worth than because I actually enjoyed them.
still, some multiplayer games get me absolutely hooked for a while. a well-designed multiplayer game can be a never-ending stream of novel situations. open-ended puzzle games like factorio are always fun (for me) with a couple good friends. for some reason it never feels like work, even though it's fairly close to what I just did from 9-5.
I think since most online games have chat rooms or other such social aspects, and also the game is there to provide an inherent icebreaker activity when speaking with others, online games tended replaced older hangout-style social activities for some people.
The game being work, but not hard work, provides a number of things beneficial to easy social interaction: a reason to be there, typically an easy way to add value (within the game) and therefore have a reason to approach groups you aren't a member of and potentially join or meet, and an overall good background for chat/conversation without necessarily coming off as desperate or creepy.
Work and games are the same activities. The only difference is whether someone cares about the end result, and hence will complain if you don't do it properly, take your time or go explore different areas.
Having a casual conversation is fun. Being forced to have casual conversations with people all that long is work. And so on etc.
One young man in my boy's cohort got addicted. Sat and drank beer and played video games until exhausted; then slept on the couch and repeat the next day. Two years later, died of liver failure.
The phrase "living at home" made me think of stay-at-home partners as opposed to living with parents, which led me expecting a very different vibe of the article
We moved to a suburb built around 1992, and our street had most of the original first residents. Out of say ten houses of original residents, three houses had sons in their 30's that still lived at home. (One guy was a welder and has since moved out, so I believe he was just saving money for a downpayment somewhere.)
Snide comments about "kids these days" aside, housing is much more expensive than it used to be, compared to median household earnings.
[Edit] I'm totally guilty of snide comments about "kids these days"; I wasn't directing that at anyone.
What are the things that motivates them, and what do they themselves want to do in life?
I ask this because much of the undertone in the article and in this thread is about the failure of meeting the gender role expectations that are put on young men. Do they have a job and a car? Have they studied hard so they can get a good job in order to support a wife and kid?
Culture in the last several decades have hammered down on the negative aspects of stereotyping. A person who is 35 has gone through a life time of TV, movie and politics that on repeat has talked about the negative of gender roles for women, while the expectations on men has remained fairly unchanged. I do not find it strange at all if an increasing portion of men under this culture has rejected the role put on them.
Which goes back to the original question I started with. What motivates them and what do they want to do with their life? If we want to avoid the slow motion tragedy, maybe the way forward is to help them answer those question in the absent of imposed gender roles.
When I was probably 18 I asked a friend/coworker who was going to community college what they wanted to do after college and they just didn't know. I couldn't wrap my head around that. As far back as I can remember, I always had an answer when an adult asked me "what I want to be when I grow up". It wasn't always a coherent answer, but I always knew what stuff I found interesting.
I don't know why it's different for some people, but it is. I have to think it's something we just don't put emphasis on in our education system or by parents. So pop culture does it for us. When I was a kid everyone wanted to be someone famous; a singer, an athlete, an actor, etc. Today is no different, everyone wants to be an influencer, a streamer, etc.
I think we need to make it a point for kids to understand from a young age that not everyone can be the famous person, neither should everyone want to be. There are so many other options, they only want fame because they don't know anything else.
I think you might be the odd one out here. I don't have stats for it, but looking at myself and people around me, most didn't really know what they want to do for a career after school. School typically doesn't really prepare you well for figuring out what you want to do, especially secondary and prior.
Oh I totally agree, the US education system doesn't put any emphasis on helping kids figure out what they want to do after school. If a kid asks "when am I ever going to use this?", it's a sign you need to back up and lay some more groundwork. I don't know why it was different for me, but looking back I think it was important.
The vast majority of employed people are not doing "what they wanted to do when they grow up", and quite many are doing jobs they didn't even know existed.
I wanted to be a Ninja Turtle for quite some time when I was growing up, so I really don't know how much emphasis we should be placing on "what do you want to be when you grow up" anyways.
In case anyone is wondering, I didn't become a Ninja Turtle.
It's a natural phenomenon. Potential for anything turns into realization that hard work and passion need to also be coupled with capability. It's debilitating in some ways but a coming of age for others. Those who can cross this chasm succeed and pivot accordingly.
As an adult, one of the main observations about education is how little it showed me about what jobs are out there.
People pick degrees based on the advice of counselors who seem to know of 8 kinds of job, and half of them are not something you can advise a kid in a striving high school to follow (binman, factory worker, etc) .
It's actually nuts how people will do an internship and then decide this is the thing they want to do. Or they get a visit from someone at school and now they're gonna be an author.
If there's one thing we need in society, it's experiential information about jobs.
For instance I've known many people who went into management consulting. None of them think it has any value. If I was a kid I'd want to know that.
Accountants come across many types of business and are employable in many types of firms. The job is closer to a lawyer than many people expect, esp irl to tax. Your math degree is minimally useful.
Recruiters talk to people all day and are paid in proportion to the salary of the placed person.
Anyway those are just jobs that I don't do, and I know a tiny bit about them through contact with real world people.
> What are the things that motivates them, and what do they themselves want to do in life?
I suspect quite a few people are looking at the odds of achieving various goals, and simply changing the goals. Such as owning a home in desirable areas, or having kids if you cannot afford a food school district or a job that allows you to be home for dinner.
Or if you have experienced income instability, and you do not feel comfortable bringing children into the world. I probably would not have if I did not find a spouse with income in the top two quintiles. Not that there’s nothing wrong with the alternative, but different people have different risk tolerances and higher (perceived) volatility can be a cause for change in some population wide changed we are seeing.
> Or if you have experienced income instability, and you do not feel comfortable bringing children into the world.
Yet poorer developing nations have higher birth rates than developed nations. Is it because they have lower expectations for what their children need to live a "good" life, that they just have more hope that things will work out somehow, or that they somehow don't care about these concerns?
It's reductive to say that developed countries aren't having kids because of condom availability, while ignoring all the underlying social factors that don't go away even if condoms weren't available.
In developing countries, more likely than not. But there's also the factors that make people choose to use condoms when they become available. Condom availability has no effect without the whole marketing/education/social pressure around why people should use condoms.
> It's reductive to say that developed countries aren't having kids because of condom availability, while ignoring all the underlying social factors that don't go away even if condoms weren't available.
I didn't say that. Many, many other things affect the reproductive rate. However the availability of contraception (and other tools for family planning) has a significant and obvious impact on the size of those effects.
Education about familly planning and availability of contraception do in fact influence fertility in developing countries. Also, spcifically education for women does a lot too.
As in, when people are able to reliably plan children, they have less of them.
Imagine you are a farmer - you don't have trouble finding space for your kids to play or where to house them, like a person living in a modern megacity might. You probably live with or near extended family, and they can often take care of the kids while you are busy, whereas we now have expensive daycare and carehomes, etc.
> You probably live with or near extended family, and they can often take care of the kids while you are busy
You have to reciprocate which is completelt ignored on HN. They do help you with kids and you have to help them with kids, elder care, sick care house fixing amd what not. You also dont get to make that many individualistic decisions either and many people have to accept their decisions made for them.
> Is it because they have lower expectations for what their children need to live a "good" life
Yes, I think the minimally acceptable quality of life is certainly relative.
> that they just have more hope that things will work out somehow
Possibly, if everyone around you is on an upward trajectory, I can see that changing people’s calculus.
> or that they somehow don't care about these concerns?
I think a big factor is how (financially) independent women are and what kind of access to birth control (especially IUDs) they have. I suspect many of the women who have or had 3+ children would not have if they had similar options to those in developed countries today.
They're largely subsistence farmers with high infant mortality and little to no automation which accounts for about 2 billion people. They need children to work the fields and it makes sense to have a lot of children when the labor turn around time is five years and up to a third of them will be dead by then.
The adults pay the "fixed costs" to keep the farm running so each additional child produces more in labor than they consume in resources. They're too poor to hire other adults for labor because they have their own "fixed costs" that are much higher than a child in the family.
That’s about how I ended up at having zero interest in raising children. Back when I was still with an ex, I was ambivalent about children. They were in the “probably will happen but I have no concrete plans to change my life to accommodate them just yet” bucket. Said ex had a sudden shift in heart and realized she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom after all while we were discussing whether to get married or not. She was also one of my many classmates who should have said “college is a waste of your time and your dime” when calculating how many student loans would be necessary. It was then that my feelings on children clarified that I would only consider them if I could have a reasonable guarantee of granting them at least the numerous leg-ups I had as a child and that would be infeasible if we were that busy paying off mommy’s student loans. After we broke up, my feelings drifted toward just not interested at all: put flippantly, “spread ideas, not genes”.
On a related note, on mainstream TV/articles about declining marriage/birthrates in the West, it's common to see criticisms about modern Western men. How women can't find life partners because men aren't masculine enough anymore, don't want to grow up, don't get educated etc.
But very rarely do you see any criticism or even questioning about modern Western women and what men want in a woman. Only what women want. The journalists never seem interested in asking whether modern Western women are marriage material? Degrees don't make you marriage material. Are men still attracted to feminine women, and are there enough feminine women? Are there potential reasons why Western men find it risky to commit to Western women? Do Western women have realistic standards? Do Western women need to be less picky about superficial characteristics? Given that the vast majority breakups are initiated by women, could women in a lot of instances be ending relationships and wrecking their own homes over trivial matters?
The mainstream coverage of this topic is usually very one sided/gynocentric. Women questioning the value of modern men is acceptable, while men questioning the value of modern women will often get you labeled a misogynist/woman hating incel.
This imbalance/lack of discussing what men want in women/lack of criticism of some aspects of modern women really hurts marriage minded women as well, because a lot of women are growing up without hearing what men want in a woman to marry.
This gets said so much on fora with men who regard themselves as “redpilled”, but it makes no sense to me personally. As a bookish and arts-inclined person, so much of my worldview, the things that occupy my thoughts during the day, has been formed by the canon of literature, music, films. No woman would seem dating and marriage material to me if she weren’t similarly erudite and we would have some common ground in that respect. It has been the number-one factor driving all my relationships over my life.
Often the man claiming that men don’t care about a woman’s education, goes on to say that what matters is that the woman knows, for example, how to cook. That, too, has never made sense to me. I live in a country where for the childless, eating out good healthy food is not appreciably more expensive than cooking at home, and a woman who chooses to take advantage of that and use her valuable time for other pursuits, would seem more attractive.
You studying social subjects that almost only women study is the exception, you can afford to be picky about this. Lots of guys would love to have a woman who shares their interest, but since so few women study technical topics they have to settle with women they have little in common with. And at that point whether they studied some social topic or no topic and did other stuff isn't high up on the list.
Thanks, that is some insight into why men who are primarily concerned with technical subjects would be unsatisfied with the dating market. However, I wouldn't claim that "almost only women" are concerned with the humanities subjects I mentioned above. Film criticism and scholarship on many branches of literature and music are still fields that draw either predominantly men, or have a pretty even gender balance.
If you take the subject and the adjacent subjects you get mostly women though, even if specific courses are more balanced. It is the same in technical courses, some of them like chemistry and biology have more even balance but overall there aren't a lot of women.
You seem to have this assumption that the only expression and development of interests comes through taking courses. I have a degree in CS, yet care much more that my partner shares my non-technical interests than my technical ones, cause I can talk shop all day long at work already...
Well, no, they said "No woman would seem dating and marriage material to me if she weren’t similarly erudite and we would have some common ground in that respect" but being erudite in no way requires or is the same as having a degree. That's just one way of many to get exposed to things.
I didn’t actually argue that. The erudition I have always sought in dating or marriage material does not depend on the degree I have, and in fact my own degree is in a field different than the canon of art to which I mentioned above. But sure, having a degree of some sort does greatly boost the chances that one will have had access to an academic library (or awareness of alternatives like LibGen), and potentially made use of it for subjects beyond one’s own degree programme.
The proportion of women with degrees differs from country to country, and often isn’t “the average woman” at all. And sure, having a degree is certainly no guarantee of erudition, but in most countries, women without a degree are even less likely to possess the kind of erudition I was talking about. To the point where a degree does function as a basic prerequisite.
My point is that when degrees are so easy to get that an average person has one then they don't have any meaning as a filter. There are plenty of reasons not to get one that aren't "I don't like learning" so it doesn't work as a filter in the other direction either.
I don't even know what to say to this. Is [picks from list] speech pathologist, dental hygienist, nurse, payroll clerk or hairdresser NOT a job that involves a fair amount of knowledge, training, and skill?
Just because it's not EE or CS doesn't mean there isn't a wealth of technical and scientific understanding (or even just an understanding of the legal environment) going on behind the scenes of a profession.
So you're probably not going to find a girl who has exactly the same job as you and wants to date you -- but if you ask them to explain their profession to you, you might just learn there's a lot going on under the hood.
"they have to settle with women they have little in common with"
Again, this is just a lack of imagination. I studied a bit of chemistry, my wife studied a lot of chemistry, we appreciate that chemistry is cool. Just because I went with computers and she went with medicine doesn't mean we have "little in common"; we just find other topics to geek-out about.
"Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't."
― Bill Nye
> Often the man claiming that men don’t care about a woman’s education, goes on to say that what matters is that the woman knows, for example, how to cook. That, too, has never made sense to me. I live in a country where for the childless, eating out good healthy food is not appreciably more expensive than cooking at home, and a woman who chooses to take advantage of that and use her valuable time for other pursuits, would seem more attractive.
If a woman is basically the mirror image of a man (degree, high paying job, spends most of the day at an office), then what exactly is a man buying into with a relationship with said woman? Maybe intimacy, but that feeling will wear off after a few years. A vagina? Well, that's kind of depressing on its own. Expecting men to love and accept women who serve the exact same role they do in life is like wondering why companies aren't run entirely by managers, or entirely by assembly line workers. Men can already make a bunch of money and find intellectual stimulation from other men, and a woman has to compete with that. So what does a woman necessarily provide a man in that case?
Related to that, an intellectual woman probably isn't going to have a lot of time for anything outside of a few hours of eating food, watching Netflix, and maybe sex. That's all fine and good, except there's a kind of relationship that already fulfills those things, and it's called friends with benefits. Why make a contract with the state that gives half your possessions to the opposite party if things go wrong when you can get the benefits without any of that baggage?
No offense, but it can be really astounding how people simply can't understand that the programming they received about college degrees can be wrong. Man spent millions of years mating with women who didn't have a college degree (and vise versa!). A woman with a college degree does little more than what the man already can do with his own college degree.
It's just like the field of software engineering. No one really wants to work with a jerk with credentials. They want someone with good qualities that they can get along with.
If that's what someone is looking for in another person, then yes. But the concept of "better" is purely contextual. What seems to be better for marriages, or any team of people, is when the participants bring fulfill different roles that serve the shared mission. Two people doing fundamentally the same thing isn't necessarily helpful, although some people may thrive together that way.
That kind of labor is ultra expensive these days. You need 500K or more for this to be realistic to have done for you at anywhere approaching 24/7 levels
$15/hr * 40 hrs/week * 4 weeks/mo = $2,400/mo and that's only during working hours. Which, chances are you're going to pay more than that, as that doesn't include that person's healthcare, that's pre-tax, and more.
Sure one can pay for a child care center, but that's not covering the whole cleaning and doing the chores around the house. Its also only 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
An at-home caregiver (note: I didn't say wife either spouse can do) can provide an immense amount of value.
Yeah 2400 probably sounds right though come a bit differently. That buys you 10 hrs of shared child care and a cleaner every month. Totally worth it if you both make decent money
Sure, one can get intellectual stimulation from other men, but having an intellectual partner means one can have intellectual stimulation around the clock – if you think of something interesting at any hour of the day, you have someone to share it and discuss it with. I value my male friends, but you can't reasonably expect to see them more than a few hours a week, and many gradually fall away as they e.g. get bogged down in childrearing that no longer leaves them time for the intellectual things that once bound us together. Your feeling that the woman won't have time to provide companionship doesn’t necessary hold in this day and age when more and more people doing knowledge work are working remotely, so you might be sitting together most of the day.
Also, if one's particular interesting in learning extends to longterm travels, immersing oneself in foreign countries to study the languages or aspects of culture there, your male friends are probably not going to accompany you for more than a brief time. When people go on longterm travels, it is their partners that they rely on for companionship. (That holds, of course, for non-intellectual people traveling, too, as anyone in the bikepacking or overlanding scenes can tell you.)
For a bookish person, being in a relationship with a partner who merely has "good qualities", but who doesn't share that basic context, can mean feeling like one is not truly understood and there is a barrier between you. There is nothing worse than being in a relationship yet feeling alone.
I agree with most of you're saying, but I don't believe this requires a woman needs a college degree or hold down a "job" to be a good companion or that a college degree likely helps her at all in that context. I would even argue the same for men. The thing I'm arguing for is that it shouldn't be surprising that most men are indifferent to women's college education. Yes, some men on the edge of the bell curve are going to require a woman of a university background. The rest of the time, it doesn't add anything to a man's experience with a woman and can even potentially detract from it.
A college degree is not at all mandatory (or always sufficient) to be educated. However, people, regardless of gender, that aren't educated just don't tend be that interesting. Do you really want to spend your life with someone your found uninteresting?
I personally think that the more educated people a society has, the more interesting people there are to meet.
Of course there are dull people out there but do you think that most people without college degrees are dull?
While you were in college all the non-dull non-college people were out there having different life experiences than you-- learning things you don't know about.
In many ways education makes us more homogeneous. To an extent this can help make each other seem more interesting because it gives us common language and intellectual frameworks to have discussions, it dispenses with some boring preliminaries. But beyond that point, I think sharing common education makes people actually less interesting, not more.
You are very presumptuous and should consider changing your rhetorical style as it is very off-putting.
> Of course there are dull people out there but do you think that most people without college degrees are dull
I meant precisely what I said. I don't intend to make a broad statistical statement based on my limited personal annecdotes.
> While you were in college all the non-dull non-college people were out there having different life experiences than you-- learning things you don't know about.
I don't have a college degree. There are many thing I don't know about, which is why I like talking to educated people.
> In many ways education makes us more homogeneous.
I strongly disagree. ”Education” only creates homogeneity to the degree to which educational institutions focus on indoctrination over education.
I strongly support enouraging education for people of all genders, ethnicities, intelligences and socio-economic backgrounds because I think it will make the world a more interesting (and better) place.
There is a huge social stigma to non college educated folks. Many feel ostracized and inadequate their while lives even when monetarily they are as or more successful than most college folks.
If this is something you, or anyone else reading this, feels like you're suffering: I can offer that you won't necessarily feel this way forever.
Particularly, that kind of feeling inadequate in spite of success is a likely a form of imposter syndrome. Many other people experience it, including people with degrees (there is always someone else with more or more illustrious degrees). Many people feel better just knowing that other, even obviously super-accomplished people, have felt that way and many people seem to more or less age out of it.
While I can't refute the existence of that social stigma, at least I found that there isn't much of that in actuality... but that doesn't prevent it from existing in your head. Of course, there are people who always find something to be snooty about. If it's not the pedigree of your academic credentials it'll be about the brand of your sneakers. Surrounding yourself with thoughtful and emotionally healthy people can help.
At least that is what I experienced and heard from others.
>then what exactly is a man buying into with a relationship with said woman?
Jack Donovan has a great corollary to this in "The Way Of Men" where he says that society is nowadays trying to "fix" men as if they are "imperfect women."
The basic flaw in your argument is someone with a degree, high paying job, who spends most of the day at an office doesn't necessarily have the same personality as me so isn't necessarily a mirror image.
I chuckled a little at your comment because you are sort of the anti Henry Higgins, the character who sings "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" in the famous play set in 1917
this is outrageous?! and I feel totally on the outside of like 80% of these comments in a bad way for saying that.
I started copying and pasting lines and responding to them but on edit it seems pointless.
I would just say that good relationships work in both directions, 1+1=3 idiom, and come in vastly many forms.
Intimacy doesn't fade in a good relationship it grows stronger.
For sure the type of women you seem to be looking for exist and enjoy that type of relationship.
But a lot of people, of all genders and orientations, find the things you don't seem to think are good qualities, are in fact the things 'that they can get along with.'
And I would maybe suggest instead looking more at the 'programming' of gender and roles.
Women aren't simply a transaction or variable in your equation of an ideal relationship.
> if a woman is basically the mirror image of a man (degree, high paying job, spends most of the day at an office),
I have to be perfectly honest, but to me, this is entrepreneurialism, not intellectualism. Someone might go to college and get some massive degrees to become i.e a lawyer or a senior dev, or a doctor, but ... those are trade skills. There's a fair amount of overlap, but to me, intellectualism is something distinct.
For many of us, intellectualism is the "philo" part of "philosophy"; the love of knowledge. Not knowledge as a means to an end; as a means to a high-powered, eat-your whole-day career. But rather; knowledge for its own sake - knowledge that exists as a sort of purpose for life (whether secular or spiritual, it's practically the pursuit of curiosity and knowledge-seeking as a sort of borderline religious calling).
Guys like that are looking for a woman (or man, if they're so inclined) they can have fulfilling conversations with, every day, for the rest of their life. And it's not something you can do with your "pals"; there are some of these conversations you can only have with a soul mate. Hell, there are some of them you can only have with your lover - not a friend-with-benefits (which, sadly, includes a lot of spouses), but someone you've been willing to be truly vulnerable with and expose the depths of your soul to.
But yeah; for a lot of us, they have to have the same deep love of knowledge, curiosity, and sense of wonder about life - or there can't be love, there.
I knew a few women who went to college specifically for the purpose of finding a man to marry, with their goal being a stay at home mother and wife to a lawyer or doctor or something wealthy sounding.
They were as physically attractive as they were emotionally shallow. There is much much more to a person than an education.
Would a 21 year old woman with a high school education who is extremely attractive be more sought after by more men than a 40 year old woman of average attractiveness who has a PhD? I'd guess yes, and I don't think it'd be a close contest. I'd guess about 90 percent of men would go with the former if they had a real choice between the two.
It's not that the PhD doesn't add to the attractiveness. It's just not the most important variable for most men. You might differ, but unusually intellectually curious men on HN aren't really representative. Most people have very little intellectual curiosity.
I think what you said is a very unforgiving and slightly misogynistic way of describing what has been spelled out many other places before: women are increasingly opting for more education or career advancement in lieu of becoming homemakers. They don’t make those decisions for the benefit of men. They don’t have to. This has little to do with observed femininity or the “attractiveness” of getting a degree.
You’re absolutely correct, which is why I chose to phrase my post to say that the parent was taking a truth (women are increasingly choosing career over kids) and expressing it in what I consider to be bad faith. I don’t think that’s acceptable.
I also seriously doubt that the claims about women not living up to some standard of attractiveness or femininity are true, misogynistic or not.
Why is it ok to blame men but not women though? Either we blame both or none. I'd say blame none. Ultimately on a population level you don't have lazy or cold, just politics with policies, incentives etc, so it doesn't make sense to blame anyone in particular. Instead of blaming just look at what policies would be more impactful for fixing the problems.
>They don’t make those decisions for the benefit of men. They don’t have to.
But isn't that the parent poster's point? They don't make decisions that make them more attractive for marriage, therefore they're less likely to end up married.
The same argument applies to men too. Men don't have to do things that make them more attractive to women, but they shouldn't be all that surprised when they end up not being attractive to women.
There's a group missing here. We're discussing stories talking about a demographic of women that are unhappy with the men they date, and also about a demographic of men that aren't dating at all.
The men unable to get a date at all clearly have some work to do - even when there's so many unhappy women, there is something they're still doing or not doing that makes them even less appealing.
The unhappy women and the men they're currently dating are a more curious situation. Are the men unsatisfied with them in particular, and so these women have work to do to convince a man they're "marriage material"? Or are the men simply not looking for anything that serious at all?
The general position of the media coverage is that it's the latter: the women can't "make themselves good enough for marriage" because the men just want the casual merry-go-round to continue. And there are certainly men quoted in articles about this who feel exactly that, but I can't say for certain that we're missing another group who just finds these women lacking.
My personal view is that we've shifted a bit, so the "growing up" that would've normally happened for these men in their early 20s is now ten years behind or so, but I see it happening in my cohort now as everyone is in their mid-30s. So I'm not too concerned for that side of things.
When you have 4 women who wants to date 1 man then they will feel fierce competition and that everything just gets handed to guys. Similarly the 3 men those women refuse to date will feel that dating is a woman's game.
So your belief is that these guys are just in constant relationships, jumping from one to the next with so many options that they never take those relationships to the next stage? The parent poster claimed that the vast majority of breakups are initiated by women, though! So there's a curious adjacency between the idea that everything just gets handed to them and the idea that women disapprove of them and find them wanting. Their standards are simultaneously too high and too low? Do we just believe women are stupid? "I need to give this man whatever he wants because there's only 1 of him for every 4 women, but then I'm gonna dump him the first time I get annoyed!"?? Really? None of these ideas really fits anyone I personally know, either.
The idea that only some small fraction of men get any dates at all flies in the face of everything I've seen. Is there any solid demographic data suppporting this idea that only 1 in 4, or 1 in 10, or whatever, men is actively dating or in a relationship? Not message data from a dating app, because there's a LONG process between "sent a message on a dating app" and "in a relationship" but actual data on relationships. In the world as its being described here, you'd have a huge perpetually-single population...
I believe the actual "can't find a date to save my life" crowd is much smaller and less representative than it thinks it is. The internet is very perspective-distorting here. These are all surface-level-plausible claims that don't seem to hold up to any real scrutiny.
Those men doesn't even enter relationships, which is what women complains about. They feel those guys have way too high standards, and they destroy themselves trying to live up to them.
And ultimately women have to settle, as you say the math doesn't work out and in the end they want a relationship. But that doesn't help the young men who aren't old enough to be in the strike zone of more mature women. And since the women felt they settled when they went with this man of course it is they who initiate divorce and end the relationship since they always felt that they could do better.
Aha, so it's men that you have a low opinion of! "All they care about is sex so they never commit so these women sleep with them in hopes that they'll have a real relationship but then the men never let it go anywhere, and all the women are competing over this small pool of sex-obsessed assholes." In which case a narrative blaming men is bang-on accurate, but IMO this is nothing like the majority of relationships, especially as you get further from age 20 or so...
"Live, try things out, settle down when you're ready to" sounds fine to me, since again, these groups of unhappy women and undateable men tend to be loud but I see no evidence that they're demographically dominant percentages. Way too many ... not-the-most-attractive... dudes out there getting married for the math to add up...
You could just as easily say it’s women’s fault for finding only very highly desirable men attractive. But ultimately this is about biology, there’s no one to blame but Mother Nature. The sooner we can automate away the infrastructure that supports society and disappear into a virtual reality of our design the better - just like every other sentient species that has ever existed.
28% of men and 18% of women between the ages of 18 and 30 report having had no sex in the past year. So, that would be 1 in 4 men, approximately. That's as of 2018, with a trendline going very distinctly up.
> There's a group missing here. We're discussing stories talking about a demographic of women that are unhappy with the men they date, and also about a demographic of men that aren't dating at all
We are not doing that. There is a lot of discussion about men who cant find partners. The common assumption in those is that women are never single if they dont want it. There is occasional pearl clutching about women who dont seek stable long term partner.
On HN, there is basically no discussion about what women think or want. And where such discussion is, what women say is ignored and instead male guesses are taken as gospel - even if man making those guesses interacts exclusively with males and dont know any woman close enough for her to tell him what she thinks.
What is what you believe men want in a woman, that's being unfulfilled for these men?
The common male complaint I see isn't "all these women I date are simply not going to fulfill what I need," it's "no women will date me at all" which points at a breakdown in the process way before the point of "what are these men looking for." Hard to imagine these men even have any idea of what they're actually looking for in a relationship, with that lack of experience. You only find out one way...
And for that situation, a woman complaining "so few of these men I see have their shit together" and a man complaining "so few of these women are willing to date me at all" are two sides of the same coin. I think at a societal level, though, you'd be hard pressed to push the view "everyone should simply give up on contributing to society in traditional ways" so the coverage is going to look negatively at the "freeloaders" in the same way it disapproved of someone like Paris Hilton. You see it through a lens of sexism, I see it through a lens of it being hard to sympathize with someone drifting through life chatting meaninglessly on the internet and playing games. BATNA comes into play, too - the person with no options at all seems to be the one with the incentive to make changes. (While for the women here, and the men they are currently dating while ignoring these stay-at-home-and-do-nothing men, there's other, plenty-well-trod advice about compromise being necessary, etc, that's been repeated to death in media of all sorts.)
Maybe we should encourage these men to go become nannies for a few years, to both give them a job and boost their dating profile that way AND to prepare them for being a full-time homemaker if traditional employment simply isn't what they want! I certainly think that should be an option for both genders.
> Given that the vast majority breakups are initiated by women
Citation please? I would LOVE to know if your number here also includes stuff like "he slept with me and then ghosted me," too.
> Given that the vast majority breakups are initiated by women
I suspect what the poster meant to write was that most divorces are initiated by women. Which is a different statistic but still somewhat relevant. It's actually true, it's around 69% that are initiated by women. Here's the study i quickly found for it which seems credible https://www.asanet.org/press-center/press-releases/women-mor...
Interestingly it explicitly states that there's no large difference for non-marital relationships. So the poster is incorrect about breakups in general.
Speaking anecdotally from my own experience, there is a pervasive fear of marriage and raising children amongst men. Most believe that if you get divorced you'll be left destroyed financially and denied access to your children regardless of the circumstances and that getting divorced is extremely likely. Whether that's actually true or not, I don't actually know, but it's still widely believed and influencing men's behavior/plans all the same. I suspect that's a big factor in the frequency of men who don't seem to care about having their shit together. From my own observation of divorces within my extended family and those of my close friends, it does seem to be true to me. Many divorces I've been privy to, seem to almost always end with the man living a much lower standard of living by himself with restricted access to children, while the mother lives in the family home with a higher standard of living that the ex-husband pays for. Totally anecdotal of course, but it certainly makes me extremely cautious when considering marriage and it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of young men don't even consider it.
> Whether that's actually true or not, I don't actually know, but it's still widely believed and influencing men's behavior/plans all the same.
On average I think it's probably not true. Most men probably stay married, and most divorces probably aren't ruinous. I say "most", but I don't mean a comfortable majority. The ruinous divorces happen a lot. I've seen it destroy more men I know/knew than alcohol or any drug. Even if it only happens one in six times, that's Russian Roulette odds. Those are bad odds.
Statistically, men do better financially after divorce and women do worst. Men are more lonely, depressive and more unhappy. Women are more happy after divorce. Men find new partner sooner after divorce.
Where men ask for custody, they tend to get it. But they are less likely to ask.
Also, alimony for adult women are more of rare. Where they exist they are time limited and awarded only if she stayed at home for multiple years. As in, in double income situation they wont happen.
Kevin samuels is a trip. I mean I intuitively understood a lot of what he says but to see all these women claim to be 9s and 10s when they are 3s and 4s and expecting men to make 500k+ is unreal. Women today are seriously delusional
Yeah, TV and related is a pretty big psyop and always has been. I'm going to invoke Godwin's Law but even the Nazis knew how to use movies back then to brainwash people into doing their bidding.
The audience here is (wrongly) responding to you by thinking that you're somehow targeting women in your questioning, but I get what you're trying to say - you see a strange imbalance of personalities being portrayed in popular media and it's setting off alarms in your head, like someone is trying to sell you something or they're trying to push an agenda on you that you don't quite buy into. They are, but you're resisting. Keep doing this. Eventually, find out who the owners are of all these channels and products that are being pushed on you. What do they have in common, and what would they stand to gain from this. Follow the money.
> Given that the vast majority breakups are initiated by women
Hey, there's actually a study [1] about this!
> The author uses a new longitudinal study of relationships in the US, the How Couples Meet and Stay Together surveys, to examine the gender of who wanted the breakup for both marital and nonmarital heterosexual relationships for the first time. The results show that only in marriages are the majority of breakups wanted by the female partner. Men and women in nonmarital heterosexual relationships in the US are equally likely to want to break up. Furthermore, wives report lower relationship quality than husbands, while men and women in nonmarital relationships report more similar relationship quality.
> The results show that only in marriages are the majority of breakups wanted by the female partner. Men and women in nonmarital heterosexual relationships in the US are equally likely to want to break up.
Incidentally, the courts generally don't get involved in the later sort of breakup. If a for-profit industry were made for nonmarital breakups as divorce attorneys have made for marital breakups, I bet this discrepancy would narrow.
What is the rate of metabolic affordances created by women in relation to men? Isn’t this biologically necessarily male due to its sexual dimorphic traits in the biological life kingdom? What are the compounding utilization rates of income from women who elect not to marry and create life in relation to men which have evolutionary selective pressures to bring home the bacon and therefore become more active investors, ie entrepreneurial, by necessity?
The displacement of men from the labor markets has created a lack of stable patrimonial family formation, which is consistent with the Marxian doctrine’s intellectually revolutionary advocacy and its propagation into the American educational institutions over the last century in time. See the top cited references in the last century in the Western World for corroboration.
[For those unaware, Marx was violently opposed to family creation as necessarily female enslavement (see the second chapter of the Communist Manifesto).]
Patrimony has natural merit for creating principled savings and investments demonstrative in civilized record. Yet most American children are educated by the Nanny State and lack the proper tools to learn how to survive and thrive at being human - a universally patrilineal hereditary trait known as culture.
This form of culture is distinct from one which is unnaturally formed, such as by profit-motivations or ultimately temporal, metabolic functions rather than spiritual contemplation. This is seen consistent with decline in the American population’s affirmation of a transcendental existence conferred by the rise of an Atheistic population. What quantity of atheists were raised not simply with a spiritual life, but a natural one, existing outside of the metabolic motivations of federally legislated education? How does this correspond with the growth of Marxian publications in Academia compared to British Enlightenment literature including the great works of the Occident, such as Aristotle? We ought to be able to compare catalogs over time of the shift and denial of Western Patrimony as good. And I believe the shift exists, demonstrating a disintegrated sexually dimorphic society with transsexual cultural phenomenon as manufactured. Viz, unnaturally formed and therefore biologically morbid. See the overweight phenomenon as further evidence of the morbid nature of the civil authorities.
I don't think a lot of people know what motivates them or what they want to do in life.
If you could play video games all day and have fun or force yourself to study or work at a hard job all day, what would you choose?
Wouldn't most people prefer the easier and fun option?
Do you have a solution to this? (I've been thinking about it for a while and I don't know)
I don't think many people are motivated to do much of anything, and so by consequence they prefer the easier, "fun" option of wasting their time. A motivated person doesn't have to force themselves to work hard, it's the default. That's how I see it.
In part the solution I would point to is the same that is often said by parents in how one get well adapted children. Provide social support and introduce hobbies. They are not a silver bullet for everyone, but it catches a significant larger portion than stereotypical gender roles.
We can also draw inspiration from the cultural change that we have seen for women. How often do you see in movie a person say to a woman "Are you happy? Is this really what you want...". Lifting personal motivation as an actually question is a early good step towards making people think about it.
There seems to also be a possible error in how people perceive the problem. In the absent of video games you would not suddenly get motivation. Even if you would throw them out on the street with no money, food or shelter, the result would not be a sudden aspiration to become what society expect men to be.
Finding what motivate oneself can either be done through the help by others, or alone. It not as much of a question about what is easier as all hobbies are more work than no hobby at all.
I wonder if it's more inherent than just culture. Women are more, for lack of a better word, desirable to men than vice versa. A man can value a woman who does nothing but exist. But a man needs something extra to provide some value to the partnership. (The previous sentences are, obviously, meant as an statistical tendency, not a universal truth.) Thus, while the negative constrains on women were mostly baseless in a modern society (with violence and manual labor being increasingly devalued), the negative expectations on men are not as baseless. Of course, in so far as monogamy and the roughly 50% sex ratio mandate some kind of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol%27s_cost_disease, these cultural expectations will lower over time, but I fear that the tradeoffs of the male sex will continue to become more and more out of touch with what is needed to prosper.
From anecdotal experience my father abandoned us I used to be a NEET in my late teen years. (but I also used to and still live in a very dangerous place, where I could regularly see people being killed or botched, something that could have contributed to me staying home)
What saved me was that I had a big interest on computers and learned at the time to do basic stuff like toying around with php (when it used to be big) and html.
One day on going through the neighborhood park I met a guy who told me he was a software developer and his company was looking for inexperienced people in exchange for the minimum wage and so my story as a developer (although I'm a very SUBPAR one) started
for whatever it's worth, my bio dad has been super hard on me, but it did push me to into going all out in terms of starting a career albeit at much psychological pain. was it worth it? i dont know maybe few years of pain for life long career.
Is anybody advocating for them or encouraging them in any way?
I can’t think of a single group which aims to highlight men, uplift men, and encourage masculine behavior.
These guys grew up in a school system of almost entirely women teachers, and popular media tells them that if they are successful in any way, it is due to oppression.
It’s no wonder why they’re not succeeding. We spent the last 15 years telling them that their success is evil. Who are their role models supposed to be exactly?
I don't think you get it. Young men today grow up almost entirely in female-dominated spaces. That is not normal historically. In fact it would be strange if it didn't lead to any pathologies.
> Young men today grow up almost entirely in female-dominated spaces.
That's bullshit. In American government, women make up roughly 30% of leadership positions. At work, unless you're a waiter, nurse, primary/secondary school teacher, or in HR, you're surrounded by men, and you only see more and more men the higher up you go.
> That is not normal historically.
That's asinine bullshit. Historical norms are not a model for current norms. A lot of people have plumbing, electricity, and representative government now, which is not normal historically. What I'm saying is, your appeal to historical norms is arbitrary and thoroughly shit.
Y'all are making women out to be devils and they're not. There's a college word for that (I had to look it up) it's called "misogyny". Ain't nothing wrong with women, or having women teachers, or women legislators, or women doctors and lawyers. Jfc, I literally can't believe I have to spell all this out in 2021.
This study did not study male and female teachers independently, so this does support the claim that female teachers are any different (or worse) than male teachers.
Furthermore, it is notoriously difficult to get to causation from correlation. If you'd like to read more about this, check out Judea Pearl's work.
I have a good friend who is working in HR. She used to be in hiring, now she is in the talent and development stream. We are not in the same company.
A few weeks ago I was speaking about my impression that my company is forcing women into promotions and positions just for the sake of reaching targets. I said that it felt unfair towards male colleagues.
Her reply was something like this: Men had the advantage for thousands of years, now it is OK if they suffer and that women receive the advantage. This will balance it out.
I disagreed because the peers that those girls are competing against were not part of the "bad white old man" system. She disagreed and said that some "eye for eye is necassary".
In theory such companies should end up imploding from valuing genital configuration over talent which is why there's so much pressure on the various levels of government to enshrine this type of behavior into law so all competitors will likewise be as hobbled by it.
In the shale boom of the mid 2000's, Halliburton hired a lot of women engineers right out of college. My understanding (from male colleagues) was that if they had the minimum requirements and had no red flags, then they were rubber stamped.
The result was that they were all tough as nails and ran a rig as well as any man. There was literally no difference between them and their male counterparts. As others have observed, capability is uniformly distributed, opportunity is not.
> Women, which are tough as nails and run [oil] rigs
What desireable women ;)
> with _litterally_ no difference to their male ... counterpart.
Counterpart... grrr
> As others have observed
I also use that, to increase credibility, but usually only in very small group settings.
> Capability is uniformly distributed
Between man and women... wow: No it's not!
Are you of Jewish decent? - Sometimes I have this "out of this[my] world encounters" ... someone just trying to play others and then I think: What was that? How could she/he be like that?
> Opportunity is not
Yeah, at Halliburton it's not.
Good that companies that thrive (Halliburton during the shale boom) can do anything they like (hire women) and still thrive...
There seem to be any number of outlets promoting men and encouraging masculine behavior. (however that may be precisely defined)
* Joe Rogan is the highest paid podcaster of all time, and has 190 million downloads a month
* Ben Shapiro has the number 6 most-listened to podcast in the US
* Fox News is the highest rated news program in the US
To your point that most women teachers are women: That's true because women are often channeled into careers that are lower paid and lower status. This is even true within careers. For example, women are 50% of assistant professors, but only 34% of full time professors.
So who could young men look up to as role models? Well, the obvious answer would be anyone who is successful and doing good in the world, regardless of gender. But even if they are only capable of having male role models, they could look up to the 66% of full professors who are men; the 100% of US presidents who are men; the professional athletes who are most celebrated, which is overwhelmingly men -- all 10 of the top 10 best paid athletes are men.
It's easy for people who feel like losers to blame the "other." It's very easy for men who feel like losers to blame all their problems on women. But by any objective standard, there are plenty of individuals and groups that support and promote men. Whatever the underlying cause is for this phenomenon, it's unlikely to be women.
Your argument reads like Palahniuk's satircal message in Fight Club.
These concepts of masculinity our culture pines for are destructive and unproductive. A woman is no less qualified to raise a man than a man.
No one has told them their success is evil. You're conflating women being told their success is success with men being shunned. There's a perception that women and minority groups have somehow gained an advantage in the last 30 years. What they've gained is some measure of equality with white males who still earn more, are more likely to get jobs and aren't stigmatized for their existence. If you believe white males are stigmatized for their existence, consider the stereotypes, lack of representation, and abuse women and minority groups face on a daily basis.
If a man can only find a role model in a man with x testosterone level, we are in dire shape as a society.
>A woman is no less qualified to raise a man than a man.
It's not that women aren't qualified, it's that children need father figures as much as they need mother figures:
>72% of juvenile murderers, and 60% of rapists came from single mother homes. Chuck Colson, “How Shall We Live?” Tyndale House , 2004, p.323
>“The strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison, is that they were raised by a single parent”. C.C. Harper and S.S. McLanahan, “Father Absence and Youth Incarceration”, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Assoc., San Francisco, CA, 1998
>“After controlling for single motherhood, the difference between black and white crime rates disappeared.” Progressive Policy Institute, 1990, quoted by David Blankenhorn, “Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem,” New York, Harper Perennial, 1996, p.31
I recall but can't find a meta-analysis which found that over 80% of children in single mother households read into stats with no critical thought.
Poverty is a more convincing factor in the way people raised by single parents turn out than that they didn't have a father figure (traditionally the financial provider btw).
It doesn't say where the cross over it, we can assume that -some- are living and home and don't participate at all, but that's not how the stats are calculated. They are calculated separately, but the article is saying there is a connection (duh) but it's not the only factor for people living at home.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 575 ms ] threadThe idea that every able bodied person has to work is not supposed to be the way our society functions; at least not in the last 100,000 years.
What? I was under the impression that particularly in agrarian societies, everyone who was able to work, worked. Are you saying that surpluses allowed for a large class of people to just not work at all?
Apparently this is the case today, since it's happening.
Historically, agrarian societies did require everyone to work - twice a year. During harvesting and planting, as much manpower as possible was needed. The rest of the time didn't require 40h of work 50 weeks out of the year. It left time for leisure, building, crafting, etc.
We're also not really in a traditional agrarian society today; most of the work required to create food is done by a vast minority of society using force-multiplying tools.
Yes, we're not a traditional agrarian society, or a hunter gatherer society - that's why "the last 100,000" years was a surprise. Essentially the op was saying every able bodied person has never been required to work. That ran counter to my understanding of history.
Because fabric for cloth magically appears from nothing and they sew themselves. Same for bedheets and such, they fill themselves.. And candles are gift from Santa, animals dont need care and houses fix themselves. Wood is just there, without preparing and cutting it.
Yo and food also creates itself from grains, just like that. And small kids changed their own diapers and washed them.
Speaking of which, did you tried washing without washing machine and modern chemistry? It used to be huge physically demanding work.
You can see the large amount of extra time available in old religious and cultural holidays which were both numerous and often spanned many days or a week or more at a time. Huge chunks of time of the year that many modern workers wouldn't be allowed leave from work nor afford if they could.
You can also see Egyptian pyramid construction which is now thought to have been mostly (but certainly not exclusively) volunteer farm workers in the off season in exchange for booze and "luxury" services like studied dentistry services that otherwise didn't exist in most of the rest of the world yet. If they wanted they could just live off their own share of crops and dick around most of the year though. Working on the pyramids was a bonus, not a requirement, and their scale proves how many free man hours they had to "waste" on stuff like building giant stone mounds and carvings and art and other religious practices. Their success is marked by how many excess man hours people had to dick around with.
Egypt used corvée labour to build the pyramids. It was certainly a requirement for those people.
There is middle class white ideal and then there is reality of people needing to eat. They did not had careers, but they needed money and only other option is stealing.
Men were emplyed more and home required a lot more work then now. But still, lower class women needed jobs.
So? Working in the home is also the norm for men. Historically, the norm is that men are self-employed in agriculture and women are self-employed in textile production.
> And it's only really the last 20 years women haven't been REQUIRED to opt out of working once they got married or had kids...
Note that being a hard worker is traditionally one of the highest female virtues. They have never been required to stop working after getting married; they had to work just like everybody else.
Women in that age range are generally more educated than their male counterparts and they earn more, so this statistic makes sense. They also have trouble finding a male partner, especially because one of their requirements is that they should earn more than them.
This sounds like an impending demographics / societal disaster.
I guess if this trends continue we'll get to a point where basic necessities will all raise in price because they can't find workers until some of these men go back to work.
It's not just the women's requirements: boys, at least those coming from a still somewhat traditional provider/homemaker household (and many effectively are even if she also has a well paying job) tend to be not really prepared for a role other than provider. But unless they are super conservative outliers they also don't expect to end up with a homemaker partner, at least not unless some freak accident makes them end up in trophy wife territory. They believe that women should be modern and all that, but they lack a clear idea of how they themselves would fit into the picture. Many find a way nonetheless, but others are bound for greybeard boyhood.
So the fruit of who's labour exactly are they entitled to then? And can I also get in on that action? I would like to get something other people made without working any more. I don't see why I as a productive member of society should get less than someone who festers in their own bodily fluids.
Does it really sound that appealing to be "entitled" to pain, high medication costs, and/or a potentially crippling drug abuse problem?
Go ahead and fester away, bud.
I haven’t spoken to him in ages. Hopefully the pandemic remote working boom has pushed things in his favor.
Not sure why what Alan Krueger thinks may or may not be the case it is relevant to this discussion. I may be sure I may be able to find many economist that may think many different things may be the case. But unfortunately for Alan Krueger here, opinions about what the data may or may not be is not the same as the actual data about what is, regardless of who's opinion it is. I would have hoped someone taught them that in highschool or university but I guess they must have not had time in their busy schedule of critical race theory.
> pain, high medication costs
Check and check, every moment I sit at a chair is just slightly less pain than every moment of standing, still manage to put in a day's work somehow.
> potentially crippling drug abuse problem?
Had it, kicked it.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Do you get less? Because if you're working and you're making less than someone on welfare you have to realize that the solution to that should be lifting you up, not dragging them down, right? As far as I'm aware, welfare isn't exactly comfortable.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: on closer look, it turns out you've been using HN primarily for ideological battle. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of which ideology they're battling for or against, because it's destructive of what this site is supposed to exist for. If you'd please not create accounts to break HN's rules with, we'd appreciate it.
Or you could cut everyone's dominant hand off. Equality achieved!
Most of us don't want that kind of equality.
I went to a STEM college where anyone who graduates could quite reasonably expect to be able to build themselves a middle-class career, live comfortably, and perhaps even have some economic mobility (moving from middle-class to upper-middle, mainly...).
There weren't a lot of women there, and you would expect that what women were there would be disproportionately the kind of woman who would be interested in having a life-long career.
Just anecdotally, looking at peers who graduated with me, that is not the case. Many are married, and many have chosen to end their careers (where finances allow) to stay at home.
If anything, I would argue the main failing we've committed upon the young generation (regardless of gender) is to provide them an economic framework wherein more than a single-digit percent of wage earners can hope to raise a family on a single income.
In my experience, there are a growing number of men who wish they could be stay-at-home dads if finances permitted.
But instead, most households are dual-income out of necessity.
And beyond that, we've also demonized living with your parents pretty thoroughly, so people are hesitant to save money and get free childcare by living with their extended family.
Something else I want to mention is how poorly we've tailored the current world to making raising a family easier. Letting your kids go further than your lawn unsupervised is tantamount to child abuse now. Childcare is absurdly expensive, low-quality, low-availability (enrollment is headcount-capacity-limited in most places) and low-flexibility (many places either want your full-time enrollment or not at all. You can't just pick some days).
And we've also demonstrated that we're, as a system, willing to totally f** over parents when disasters strike. Covid has been a total disaster for dual-income families with children. I've heard it was not uncommon for it to be "lucky" a partner was laid off because otherwise they would've had to quit, without unemployment benefits, to care for kids full-time.
Anyway, my point is, we've made it really fucking inconvenient to have kids and now there's all this overly-simplistic sexist whinging from a certain segment of the population about how it's somehow all the fault of young women. It's disgusting both from a moral standpoint and in how intellectually lazy it is.
You seem to be saying the same thing OP is saying: there are few women who are comfortable being the primary (or sole) breadwinners.
I like my kid significantly more now that I see him evenings and weekends.
This is lived experience.
I loved that feminism gave a choice and legitimised working women - but it also broke down the family structure (+divorces and unstable families - which statistically raise less successful people) and having twice the workforce heavily depressed wages' purchasing power so that now families need two working parents to survive.
I think the result for the next generation will be a demographics crash and hopefully what comes next is not reminiscent of the Handmaid's Tale.
It is absurd that divorce is seen as that big familly failure, but staying in violent or abusive relationship is treated as "succesfull familly".
In this same light, as I believe the two concepts are directly related: another friend of mine basically refuses to date anymore because he thinks the sort of culture of Tinder dating is a waste of time that favors women disproportionately.
I suspect all of this is primarily cultural first, and not related specifically to work, the economy, pricing of good or services like buying a home and starting a family, which would come second.
That being said, if we were just talking about young single men, well, of course they're staying at home. It makes no economic sense to move out and get an apartment. The cost of living in major metros makes renting nearly equivalent to paying a mortgage. Except no one is building affordable homes.
Hmmm I think you're wrong. It sounds like you've got survivorship bias, big time.
Most people want to contribute, but the economic system fucks them and makes them dependent. Examples include: the intellectual property regime and monopolistic parasitism of the knowledge commons [1], neoliberal philanthrocapitalism [2] and the completely disgusting and neocolonial division of labour under global capitalism [3].
Can you really look at the Blackrock disaster [4] (Wall Street slumlordism), or the IRS papers or the Panama Papers and tell me that the system doesn't harm people?
[1] https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/01/abolish-silicon-valley
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals... and https://anthempress.com/kicking-away-the-ladder-pb
[3] https://anti-imperialism.org/2012/09/18/understanding-and-ch...
[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27448175
I've spoken about what REITs do for years on HN. I've worked for them a couple of times as well, so I've seen what goes on first hand.
Yeah, someone could do that for any system. "A horrible thing happened somewhere" or even "this part of the market is totally screwed up" are facts about every plausible alternative. So though they may be facts about the current system, they don't tell us how to improve the situation.
You can make an argument that the problem is systemic, but having one example of a problem doesn't do anything except score rhetorical points in a game where evidence and argument don't really matter.
The culture has changed dramatically since the 50s when these trends started. For the men, their role has gone from default “protector, provider, head of the home, in charge, theist, conservative, married young” to “equal bread winner, often oppressive, too often toxic, without innate greater purpose or role, etc”.
Obviously these are broad generalizations, but we would probably agree that men get a worse wrap now than then (even if that came at the expense of others). Does that large cultural shift have a large effect? Are men lacking purpose now and how much of the current problem men face is because of that cultural shift? The economic is important, but the cultural factors are huge too
As with everything on the internet (it sadly seems), there is a necessity for nuanced position. Perhaps, economic and cultural factors are playing a self-reinforcing and thus compounding effect on our society?
There are also the non-cultural and non-economic factors such as declining testosterone levels. This could have profound emergent economic and cultural implications that we have not even begun to calculate.
This line of thinking in my opinion is the problem. Before I start, I will admit I have survivorship bias.
The points you mentioned are problems, but in my opinion that's not an excuse. One of your points you mentioned that it's now harder than ever to buy a home because Blackrock is scooping all of them up. While I agree that it certainly makes getting a home harder. I think if anyone truly wants a home and is willing to do whatever they need to in order to get it, they can get it. Same goes for just about everything else, if you want something, and you're willing to do whatever it takes to get it, you can do it.
All the problems you mentioned are roadblocks, not showstoppers. I think these days it's easier to just make the excuse that there are all these things standing in our way thus making it impossible for us to do the things our parents did.
You may be right, but people come in a normal distribution, with most being just average. To "do whatever it takes" implies a person on the extreme right of the distribution, and most people aren't there. So while it may be possible to buy a home, if it takes extreme effort to do it, most people won't.
Whereas, when I grew up in the 60's, my dad worked as a bag boy at Kroger, then a meatcutter. We had a small 3br house, 2 kids, a car, a motorcycle, a boat, insurance on all this stuff, and mom worked out of the house doing babysitting and ironing. They were still in their early 20's and got married right out of high school. We eventually had 2 cars while still in this house, around '65. Nothing even remotely like this would be possible today.
[1]: https://wtfhappenedin1971.com
The greatest takeaway for me is that everyone is FAR worse off today and in my generation.
US nationally (today 2021) about 85K is equivalent to the cited 25K 1971 numbers. :: ~10X cost of living (edited, I unconsciously compared to the wrong number.)
Seattle is far more distorted, with housing beyond out of control (I don't know what kind of house was being looked at for the 1971 numbers, but it really doesn't matter, there's almost nothing even remotely near the national price within the region). ::
Seattle's rent is completely out of control; beyond any rational measure. No wonder neither I nor my generation can make any savings; it's all being consumed by rent seeking land owners.
The emotion of dependency seems less likely to be developed by an economic system than of culture. One might claim that it is difficult to separate one from the other. Taking a cultural or an economic point of view I can see how a hierarchical culture would see participation as zero-sum but not an economic system. An economic system by itself, capitalist pig, pinko commie, feudal manorialism, whatever, is enhanced by participation and a sense of interdependency.
The people being discussed here are people without jobs who have a place to live rent free. There is not an economic system holding them back from being able to find a way to contribute because their expenses are very close to $0. For all practical purposes, they have the equivalent of universal basic income. If they would like to write poetry instead of playing video games they could. If they would prefer to paint or write code, they could.
Men are now reverting to the mean a little bit. This could be a natural normalization of a situation where men were exalted as industrious, and women were literally left at home. Both extremes are bad.
One day we’ll just have two 30 year old stay-at-homes get married and not think twice about it. No expectations or judgement on ones job and aspirations, or gender specific duties. Just two genuine deadbeats.
What’s so distasteful about it? Truly nothing, but yet, why doesn’t it feel right?
My female friends (I'm male) with online dating profiles have shown me their matches and conversations, and it's bleak. They all mostly have an average profile and still receive thousands of likes/hearts/swipes and messages, but the mean amount of effort from men messaging them is zero to none.
Maybe your friend considers the situation of having fewer women on dating apps as somehow "favoring" their gender, but from what I've seen and heard, sorting through an inbox of unsolicited genital photos and copy pasta pickup artist lines is not something most women would say they enjoy spending their time doing.
If instead he's referring to apps like Bumble where the woman has to make the first move, see above for why some apps choose to operate with that model.
He didn't say it was, he said it was preferable to having no matches.
I recall seeing the OkCupid stats once (okstats?). The numbers pretty much said that although women were getting most of the messages, they were all only responding to the same 10% of males, while most men were sending messages to almost all the women.
You've pretty much got 80% of the women competing for the top 10% of the males.
The situation isn't great on either side, but plenty of statistics show it's mostly women having sex off these apps, so clearly there is an actual imbalance.
And you can't write off the sheer hopelessness and isolation that the thought "there's not a single woman out there who would date me" induces in young men. I'm sure it's not fun for women but it is absolutely __brutal__ for many men.
Uh, trust me, white men can easily accumulate zero matches too.
Why invest more time and energy than absolutely necessary?
Most women don’t want to sleep around and have a large number of partners. But tinder leads them to believe that they can find an unrealistic partner. And they get hurt by the small percentage of men that play the online dating game well.
Women need a lot more data and time to evaluate a potential partner before initiating contact.
Anyway, the disbalance between amount of men and women there is quite large.
It was my experience that young women in general were asking for too much when I was in my early 20s. They wanted someone who had it "all together," and that's just not where most people are in their early 20s. There doesn't seem to be any appreciation anymore for the fact that young couples grow up together. Instead, people seem to think that you grow up first and establish who you are independently, then find someone else to bring into your life. But realistically, you don't finish growing before dating, and in life who you become is based on the interactions not just with your significant other, but your friends and family, too.
Lastly, all of my dating experiences online lead me to women who wanted to be "entertained." And not in the sort of "wined and dined" sense which seems obvious to me, but rather most women I came across didn't want to get to know men, they just wanted entertainment value out of the experience of dating. This was a sharp contrast from interactions with young women in real life. The dating world for both young men and women online seems to create some strange scenarios that don't play out well for anyone involved. I see this manifest the most in online dating where most men are naturally led to play pickup artist lines. I personally find it extremely off-putting. I'm not a jester.
I'm not saying that is what you're saying. It just made me recall my experiences.
This needs to be hugely caveated. If you skip dating for five to ten years, you're gonna jump back in fresh and probably fuck things up terribly the first few times. Too eager, too indifferent, too clingy, too distant, etc... you're gonna be terribly out of practice at it all.
It's a skill, like anything else it takes practice. There's altogether too much BS out there about people being "meant to be" versus people putting in the work on both sides to create something real.
These are generally personality traits of someone who is not well adjusted. If you are the type of person who can become professionally and personally (think friendships and any other non-sexual relationship) successful, then you'll probably be fine jumping back into the dating pool even if you've only dabbled casually for a pretty long period of time.
You might also quite reasonably be confident in your professional and personal-friend lives, but be lacking some of that confidence in dating, since you haven't done it for years. These aren't transferable domains for a lot of people.
I was on dating sites and apps for several years before I started having any luck finding much, much less something serious, and every moment of it was valuable practice in an area that didn't come naturally to me at all. My career situation also improved throughout those years, sometimes faster than my dating skills, and I quickly learned that having a nicer car did me 0 favors while I was still uncomfortable on a date in the first place. None of that professional practice applied - was I going to talk about load balancers and HA strategies on the date?
I've had a long string of failures after starting dating (Post covid vaccine) and just felt so incapable of being next to another person.
It's like all this time quarantined as put my dating skills back to zero (not that they were ever good). I feel so broken, like shards of glass that cuts anyone who tries to touch me.
But you have inspired to to once again glue all my broken shards together and try and try again.
Thank you.
That’s why you should never stop dating, even after you’ve met someone. You never know when you’ll break up and have to find someone else. Best to stay sharp.
I don't know... I'm not sure most women would be comfortable dating a man in his early 30's who'd never had a relationship of any kind...
Because you then have established so much of who you are independent of the interactions between yourself and a who-would-be spouse, there's a greater chance that you'll have even more to disagree over.
You're only creating more difficulties for yourself. Beyond the intricacies of a crystallized person, there's a smaller dating pool, it's more difficult to get pregnant, you have a greater difficulty acquiring assets not having another person you're working together through life with.
Yes, those women in their 20s will want to date you, but if you're in your 30s, you're effectively dating a kid. They absolutely do not have the same experiences you will have at that point in time unless you did no personal growth for a decade.
And also as I mentioned below but just to make sure it's clear: if you aren't comfortable dating, then you should date as often as you can because it can be genuinely fun and fulfilling and lead to very positive outcomes. If you _are_ comfortable dating and do well with the opposite sex of your preference, but just aren't satisfied with what's out there or it feels forced and unenjoyable, then you _might_ benefit from focusing more on developing yourself rather than focusing on the partner search. It's a cliche but once you're truly in a good place with yourself, you tend to attract to the right people into your life.
Temporarily. Then you divorce and lose all of those assets. It’s not a gamble I would recommend based on expected financial gains for sure.
P.s. I've learn just enough bass to meet my wife !
I go out socialising/partying less now, and am on the PC more (games, projects, etc - most of my interests are on PC). Your advice creates the people in the article!
Now I will say it's not really anyone's fault. Women looking for men probably don't see what the other women on the site's profiles look like. Likewise my profile might be a trope as well. But men do have to go out of their way to stand out to get a decent chance at a connection.
You're right. Everyone is interesting once they open up a little.
The goal though isn't to show how you're different from the herd, it's to show that you're better than the herd, for whichever sub-herd you're signaling membership. That strategy preserves maximum choice.
Something interesting I've noticed, is that trying to break that mold is considered negative. If you look at subreddits that tend to give out advice (typically to men) on dating profiles, they advise people to do things that make their profiles more generic.
I personally avoid dating apps, because I'm not attractive enough (or at least, not photogenic enough, somehow cameras almost always manage to clown me) and I'm not outwardly interesting enough to attract people by reducing myself down to a few pictures and text snippets.
"Today" is an interesting word choice. This seems like a lingering problem originating in the past, when women were entirely expected to depend on a man to provide, and were NOT expected to have stuff going on in their own life beyond being fertile and useful around the house and of good family background...?
What's the line? "Feminism is for men too"?
Men who just want hookups can keep such women's calendar filled for a while but aren't going to be really doing that providing in the long run.
But in general, the obsession with not being a loser is dangerous for everyone: not everyone will be in the top 10%, and not everyone will attract someone in the top 10%, by simple math, and yet people of both gender's are convinced that it's the other group that has the unreasonable standards...
One school of thought says there are men on dating websites who copy-paste a message saying "hey how you doing?" to every woman they see; and that women are beset by hundreds of copy-pasted messages from men who haven't even read their profile.
This school of thought says, in order to stand out, men should carefully compose a different clever, charming message for each woman they contact, based on things the recipient mentions in their profile and suchlike.
Of course, a man sending 100 copy-pasted messages and a man sending 5 high-quality messages might be expending the same amount of effort in total but the latter is demonstrating greater effort per woman
In this context, kogepathic means more men should adopt the strategy of carefully composing messages.
The takeaway for me is profile pictures, physical appearance and class/status signifiers (vacations, hobbies, nice things in/around the picture) were all that mattered and if someone was sold on that all you really had to do was not get in your own way by saying something stupid.
To use a property analogy: if I am not the highest offer on a house, I probably won't get it. Doesn't matter if I have a trust fund or work for minimum wage (effort put into the offer) my offer wasn't accepted.
Similarly if I'm the seller, I can decide "No, actually I don't want to sell my house to BlackRock, I'd rather sell it to this young family" and that's entirely my choice. This choice might leave money on the table, but at least I get the warm fuzzy feels inside for doing what I think is best.
What you describe sounds like you want some kind of "thank you for putting in some effort" but you decide the amount of effort to invest, the other party owes you nothing.
It's hard to say which is worse: the messages that say that they haven't put any thought into you at all, or the messages that say they have exactly one thought about you -- and everybody else.
Everybody gets poor payoff percentages. You play if you think the game is worth the candle.
While if a guy wants a proper conversation... get lucky punk?
I'm told it's different in other places but I suspect that has more to do with the men than the women.
You're saying the "it's not hard" situation is similarly demoralizing to what women face? Sure I guess.
But BitwiseFool was describing a situation where it's extremely hard to get a reply, and that is much more demoralizing because there's no easy fix.
My suspicion is that I worked to make myself interesting, and worth conversing with. And I see a lot of comments here that betray a deep distrust of women, with a ton of stereotyping and lack of empathy. I hear tons of complaints from women about men's profiles, and it never has to do with looks or money.
I've sometimes thought of opening a dating profile consultancy. I may be completely off base, but I believe that in a lot of cases, men can do better without changing jobs or their appearance. And my first piece of free advice is that if you're blaming women, women aren't going to like you.
In what sort of ways are you “ interesting”? Genuinely curious. FWIW most advice I’ve seen regarding advice for dating profiles (particularly for guys) involves removing anything that might signify personality and to make it as formulaic as possible. Your pictures all have to be the right things, the profile description can’t be too short or too long, and can only say certain things, etc. I think on these sort of apps it’s almost seen as positive to be as basic as possible. Even I find myself suspicious of profiles that say to much or try to stand out now.
The other piece of advice I see almost always has to do with quality of pictures, which is understandable, but let’s be real, if I had the kind of life where I was happy all the time, doing cool things and taking pictures with friends, I probably wouldn’t need to be on this app ;)
So many women I've met complain that they start the date with "so tell me about yourself" and get, "uh I dunno. I like to play video games." (Not that there's anything wrong with video games but at least have some stories to tell. Maybe she'll also play. Jackpot. Unless you start telling her she's not a real games.)
I do lots of things. I act, i juggle, i run marathons. The tricky part is phrasing it in a way that doesn't come off as "I'm too cool an expect you to shut up and listen."
That is of course just what works for me, and for the kind of women I like. (Talking about dating sites is a really easy topic of conversation on a first date, so I hear a lot.)
If they're telling you to be dull, maybe that works for other men with other women. But to me it sounds like a recipe for a boring date.
I try to go in with the attitude that if we do nothing more than spend a few minutes chatting nicely over coffee, it will have been fun and worth my time. That kind of attitude seems best for making myself seem worthwhile and fun, so that she wants more.
If someone told you they were having a hard time buying a house and all their offers were silently rejected replying "The sellers owe you nothing" might be true, but it is beside the point.
No, that's an aberration perpetrated by software. The same problem has manifested in interviewing. Maybe you're thinking of "nobody owes you sex" instead?
If you greet a person in real life or over a call and they intentionally ignore you, they are being rude. Obviously, if you're being rude first, that's different. They can say "hey" back, or "sorry, I'm not interested" or "kind of busy right now, can we pick this up later?" There are plenty of options.
I understand that the way these apps are set up, responding like this isn't a winning strategy. Despite what the Internet would have you believe, there is a minimum social bar when there's a human on the other end of a comm channel.
Towards the end of my time on OkCupid (where I met my wife!), I wanted to only compose five messages per day. I did this to reduce my time on the platform. (Online dating services are masters of dark patterns and addicting behaviors.) However, even though those messages were short, since they were bespoke to the profiles I was looking at, those messages took time to write.
I found myself in this predicament where I burned too much time looking at profiles of attractive women with bland (to me) profiles. So, I thought "what if I hid the photos and focused on profiles I thought were interesting?"
Three things happened when I did that:
1. Writing short, but targeted, messages became a LOT easier because I was focusing on connecting with people I probably wanted to spend more time with,
2. Since I never "saw" who I was messaging when I wrote those messages, me never getting a response from them hurt way less (since I never met them to begin with!), and
3. When I un-hid the photos of the women who responded to me, _they were still attractive!_ As it happens, I learned that I'm attracted to smart, pretty women with personalities.
I suppose this won't work for people who want to do the nasty with as many hot people as they can find. There were, like men, smart, attractive women who didn't know how to craft an online dating profile and got filtered out from this approach.
What I do know is that my response and date rate went WAY up after hiding photos and responding to interesting profiles, and my mental health towards online dating improved significantly.
Now? I just gave up. I have better things to do then spend hundreds of hours without a single conversation going anywhere. Online dating is a useless black hole.
(Looking for hookups on apps is, I imagine, an entirely different ballgame, and I have no idea what works or doesn't work there.)
The "I want the total package" unrealistic-expectations person is prominent in both genders, even if "no fat chicks" t-shirts aren't as popular as they once were. The slob-with-hot-wife TV trope probably hasn't helped men's expectations here.
The "I'm gonna send a thousand dick pics and see who is down for a hookup" behavior, on the other hand, seems predominantly male-dominated. Even the women looking for hookups don't operate like that (you could debate chicken-and-egg here, around how they don't ever have to with all the dudes throwing themselves at them, but I'm not too interested in that). Those men result in a worse experience for BOTH women and men, but in a more acute fashion for the women on the receiving end of the creepiness than for the men who just have to try harder to manage to stand out above the background bullshit level.
Someone at Match Group must have worked out that having these users boosts the bottom line more than it reduces engagement and retention. Maybe these are the guys paying for Premium Platinum with extra InMails each day. (Oops wrong platform.)
So the two extremes are basically having sex with rando internet people and getting ultra-picky.
So my idea is to put all the incentives the other way. The tool is designed to operate on a budget of ~$0. I would accept donations, but otherwise have no monetization and therefore no desire to increase "engagement" of any kind. My incentive is such that I actually don't want you to interact with the tool, because that will cost me bandwidth and processing time. I will allow you to have a profile of text and one single image of restricted size, because I don't want to have to host anything else. You will fill out a multiple choice questionnaire with as few questions as I feel I can get away with to ensure at least some level of basic compatibility, and then you do nothing.
Periodically, a cron job will run and see if anyone matches, then it will send you both each others profiles (through good old-fashion email) and ask if you'd like to go on a date. If you've both agreed, there will be a sequence of messages from the system proposing date ideas, locations, and times until consensus is reached. Then it's all up to you. This is designed to ensure that you make a real human connection to the person in a real life interaction before any contact information is ever exchanged.
It probably sounds as though this sort of thing would have a hard time attracting users. I consider that a feature, because it means it'll cost less to run and it will avoid attracting ego-inflation seekers, low effort numbers gamers, and other ungenuine people.
As envisioned, I would expect this sort of thing could cover a moderately sized state on a raspberry pi.
Then I just agree to every date that gets sent to my email. Ideally this could be automated so that I could run it on a raspberry pi.
But please, go on.
You've just made a bad/even more exploitable OkCupid/Tinder/PlentyOfFish clone.
You're treating people being dishonest as some sort of revelation.
How do you spam/exploit that?
Sure you could be more picky and spend the same effort to go on less dates and maybe end up in the same boat at the end, you'll just get laid less often. And honestly, I learned so much about myself, about women, and about people in general by going on a bunch of average or below average dates.
Rationale is that a lot of women, and to a lesser degree men, do not feel comfortable going out 1x1 with a stranger (and potential predator/rapist/catfish). Not to mention the pressure of finding common interests and cultivating a date experience. The group dynamic offers safety, and the hobby-focused nature of the activity offers entertainment without pressure.
I don't think dating apps/sites favor either sex more so than dating in general does. Women, in general, don't really have to try to get solicitations. Their issue is in trying to weed through all of the solicitations to find those worth responding to. It's basically the hiring problem. But there's no Hackerrank for compatibility.
And then there's the issue that even those that feel the system is tilted against them in general don't understand that it's just them. They're not successful because they aren't as kind, nice, or desirable as they think they are. Or they keep making the same bad choices in romantic pursuits and wonder why they keep getting the same outcome.
The problem with all of these apps and gimmicks and what not and certain segments of tech in general is that it assumes that deep down, people are making rational choices. We aren't.
Dating apps are especially good at making people not have to face their shortcomings, i.e. I don't have to fix my shortcomings, because with a large enough pool there's going to be someone broken in the right way to accommodate me. Maybe that's rational, or maybe it's not, it really depends on expectations.
Counter intuitively, accepting that we're just stupid hairless apes makes me believe we're rational. We're not failing to find anything meaningful; we're not interested or looking.
Often because that inferior product manages to exploit our irrational selves either intentionally or unintentionally.
I agree for a different reason. The circus show about hiring is mostly bullshit. You could probably randomly select qualified candidates and turn out just fine.
Likewise with dating, ordering up another human like a sandwich creates a weird dynamic designed to keep you shopping — you stop paying when you meet someone.
If you paired 10 pairs of average people at random and had them doing some task that took them a couple of weeks, half would be “together” at some level by the end.
(Some of it, I think, is Tinder et al showing me profiles that it knew perfectly well were defunct. They're hoping to attract the person back, but it's a very dark pattern.)
I did find that the vast majority of women on Bumble wrote tolerable first messages. Some were better than "hi" but nonetheless didn't say much, which I interpreted as "OK, you can go ahead and write the first message." That rarely turned out well, but at least I knew the account wasn't dead and not a bot (at least, probably not).
I met a lot of great women on both Bumble and Tinder, leading to relationships everywhere from one-night stands to decade-long romances. I don't think it's easy for either men or women, albeit in different ways. It's very easy to make the mistake that thinking that if X is hard for me then X must be the only important thing, and that leads to a lot of ill will.
Women put in high effort up front and lower effort per solicitation. Men put in lower effort up front and more effort per solicitation. Women's approach scales better, though they also bear the safety risks.
> those that feel the system is tilted against them in general don't understand that it's just them
Absolutely. Imagine if dating apps showed users their rating!
> At Tinder headquarters, I ask them if the data they’re about to show me will scar my ego. The beauty of Tinder, after all, is that rejection has been removed entirely from the process. Now, in an instant, I’d learn exactly how I ranked on Tinder. Then Solli-Nowlan revealed my score. “It’s 946,” he said. What does that mean? “It’s on the upper end of average.” It’s a vague number to process, but I knew I didn’t like hearing it. Something about “upper end of average” didn’t exactly do wonders for my ego. https://www.fastcompany.com/3054871/whats-your-tinder-score-...
On the other hand, showing your rating could be good IF coupled with actionable ways to improve it. Credit Karma but for Tinder anyone?
It's a force multiplier and the dynamics that are already present in dating in general get reinforced. So you end up with 99% of the women competing for the top 1% males and the remaining 99% males competing for nothing at all because all their advances get ignored.
It's just the result of our reproductive strategies exerting an incredible influence on our behavior, more so than we personally realize.
Men spray low-effort messages at lots of women hoping for a bite. Women don't message because they have options.
Quality men trying to find any sort of extra have to work extra hard on selling themselves. Women looking for quality men have to work extra hard on creating a profile that deters the poor options they get (hard) _and_ deal with more subpar dates.
So as a computer programmer with a LinkedIn profile, I can at least empathize a bit: I get an average of 3 job offers a week, even though I haven't really expressed any interest in changing jobs. A lot of these offers would be a major step down for me, and that's pretty clear from my profile. I still feel obligated to take the time to politely decline because I do have some sympathy for the recruiters who are just doing their best, but it's also clear they're just blasting out offers to anybody who meets a basic set of requirements.
That said - I'm much happier being in the position I'm in of too much interest than at the other end of the spectrum.
1) Do you offer permanent remote work?
2) What's the salary range for this position?
Twice now I have been very pleasantly surprised by the answer, and one of those resulted in me making an unplanned job move for a 50% increase in TC.
I've also had some success just throwing out a huge number as my expectation for comp. There is pretty much no downside to doing this.
Every woman can put herself in a man's position of no matches - just delete Tinder. Every rich person can become poor - just give away all their money.
Yet they don't. It's called revealed preferences. Because having options, no matter how bad, is better than not having options.
I'm happy to be out of the game, but online dating is bleak for 98% of men.
Okcupid used to have great data on this before they sold out, a lot of it ended up in this book:https://www.amazon.com/Dataclysm-Identity-What-Online-Offlin...
The data in that book corroborates a lot of this. We're not that different from gorillas - sexual selection is tough and most of the discussion around it ranges from wrong to dishonest.
After that the cool data blog was killed.
Under that model.. it's common for the first message to be "hi" or ".". Not much has changed.
Isn't that the exact lack of effort you complain about? The real problem is that wtf are you supposed to say to someone you don't know? Whatever that comes out is meaningless because you have 0 to go on. That's the point. It's a starting point.
Now that Vegas is more young-focused, it's all age groups on the slots. Then I think, multiply those giant floors by 1000X and that's the gaming population.
Tinder is a waste of time for women too; if you’re at all attractive you get dozens of messages a day and half of them are scams. The best I’ve ever gotten out of Tinder has been mediocre, meaningless sex; it’s far too much work if you’re looking for anything more.
You have to go do things you enjoy and be a more interesting person. If that’s just your daily life, you’ll meet people who enjoy the same things you do and you can potentially date them (or their friends).
But yeah, I agree with you. Just because Tinder sucks doesn’t mean you shouldn’t date; just that you shouldn’t look to an app to find a partner.
I enjoy reading and occasionally posting comments on Hacker News. u up?
I think it's less that he doesnt know different but more that he never got a break in the right direction. I stumbled into a career. Our other buddy stumbled into a career. He didn't. I'm not saying he never will but I can look back and point to a few key moments that led me to where I am today. Without those I'd probably be living in my parents house playing video games too.
No, you probably won’t get an office job in the next 5 years. Maybe in the next 10. No, you won’t have enough money to move out the next 5 years, but maybe in 10. Nope, you aren’t get laid anytime soon. Few people can accept the timeline and the sheer effort it will take, and the sheer time. That’s the crux of the problem, that they are truly behind and cannot deal with the time investment required.
Enough with the lies, and start from zero. The effort it takes to be just mediocre in this world is understated.
The more effort you have to put in the more desirable it has to be. Perhaps the 5+ year timeline means that what they want falls into the "it's not worth the effort" category.
I'd like to know Mandarin, but I don't think it would be worth the effort to learn the language. Maybe if I already knew the symbols I would feel otherwise.
Talking to various people this seems to be very common. I know it was the case for me.
In the past if you were a man and wanted to eat and have a home you had to work. We also relied far more on children to look after us in our old age than we do today.
Today welfare and the affordability of essentials like food make it possible for people not to work and not worry about the implications of growing old without family.
I agree it's cultural, but it's a cultural trend being fuelled by the abundance of modern day living. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know. I guess it's nice people can choose to play video games all day and not worry about working or having a family, but I worry about the impact this will have on our mental health. I also wonder what this means for economic inequality and the stability of society in general. I'm a big believer that people only care to preserve societies they have a stake in and if a large enough percentage of the population own nothing and offer no value it's very easy to see this causing a division. Should I as someone who works, pays tax, pays for his own home and pays for his own food be happy with someone who chooses not to work and have everything paid for them by people who work like me? And if you don't work and don't pay tax wouldn't you naturally want to see higher taxes and more government welfare?
It is the exact opposite of what you are claiming. Affordability of essentials has become so much worse that many people can't afford to live a decent life with their own home even if they are working the jobs that they can actually acquire.
These people aren't privileged because they "choose not to work and have everything paid for them by people who work like me", it is generally emotionally devastating to be stuck living with your family while your youth evaporates. Further, the money to do this is coming from the family (for those lucky enough to have a family wealthy enough). You're not paying for it with your taxes.
Finland, for example. "Home", of course means a simple flat in a housing block and there might be a waiting list, but housing every single one of its people regardless of employment has been something that the state has sought for a long time.
Where do you live? Most people I know are literally given homes to live in by the government. Admittedly I'm a working class guy in the UK and I'm not that familiar with the US welfare system so perhaps its quite different there. But for example, my girlfriend's mum has never worked a day in her life but lives in a £600,000 5 bed house. When she went to the job centre last year she was advised not to take part time work because she'd lose out on the benefits.
If these people were starving or homeless, don't you think they would get a job? Today we have a generation of people who have parents rich enough to let them live in their homes rent-free without demanding they get a job while the government is there for you if you decide not to. Is it any surprise some people decide a 9-5 isn't for them?
To your point though, I do accept it's harder to own your own home, but it's certainly not harder to live without a job today. At least not here in the UK.
Wouldn't someone that is able to spend most of their time playing video games (instead of e.g. farming) want society to continue as it exists today? Without that society, wouldn't they be forced to fight/work for sustenance?
Augustine, Civitate Dei
I'd hypothesize that the rising costs both economic, and mental associated with what many consider a basic standard of living independently probably has alot to do with it.
Why work when 60 hours per week leaves you just barely scraping by and exhausted? Why not be just barely scraping by and not exhausted.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/financial-independence-...
I'd say most firees are risk averse entrepreneurs.
In the parlance of our times, dudes are generally "thirstier." On top of it, you can call it genetics or you can call it culture, but ... men make the approach, typically. (Okay, I am done with generally and typically and trends for now) This leads to guys spamming some entirely-too-fussy gals and the usual dynamics emerging.
You've read the grim confessions of women who remorselessly admit to "dating for dinner." You've seen the baiting performed using the photo of a male model who can say simply the most awful and outrageous things. The Heightism user might have been banned on Twitter but others have emerged like the heads of hydras, reposting the casually cruel dismissal of men under six foot.
It's only the basic thirstiness that drives men to even continue, and I suspect that a lot of young men opt out, because that's just step one. They're looking at their often-divorced parents and remembering who got the house, then wondering if the game is worth the candle. I suspect the men at the intersection of easily disheartened and generally aware have been most put off, leaving the field to the exuberant and the blessed.
And remember, we are currently in a culture that doesn't seem to like men very much. Just for a giggle, go to Google, type "men are" and see what the autocomplete suggests, then do "women are." That has to add to more of the disenchantment.
I get matches, I meet interesting people and go on dates and the process is just emotionally exhausting.
I would rather put in time into my job, or my friends, or my hobbies. If I can meet someone who wants to be part of my life, fantastic. If not, I will live until I don't.
one acronym: MGTOW.
But, thinking of dating like a resume, as well as making dates feel like interviews has made relationships nothing but a chore nowadays. It feels wholly like a business relationship without any contractual guarantees between the parties.
Can you elaborate on that? I thought the general advice is to show off what you do because you hope to find someone who also enjoys the same.
Now, the difference between doing it for fun once and a while and being a pro at something is completely different. You do a sport fishing league, own your own boat, and are die hard into it, it changes the context similar to what you're saying. Women would possibly find that attractive because you're not some schmuck. You've got clout somewhere and are an authority in it. That's the major difference that sets them apart. It's the exact reason why you see some SWE guys with attractive women even though they may not be attractive or seem autistic on the social specturm. They've achieved something and continually work at it. It's a subtle vetting process that states "I don't give up at the first sign of weakness and I am extremely motivated."
Basically once I moved my old profile toward doing cool things that I know interest women, my matches skyrocketed basically. It really made me understand why guys don't get swipes. It's literally a resume and you gotta make yourself the best candidate.
What are those things? From what I've heard, the best pics are somewhat bland. Are you good looking, good fitting clothes and have a great smile? Just have this as profile. Then something with friends having fun, one shirtless (if well muscle-toned) and one with a dog. Oh and one doing sports, if that isn't the shirtless pic.
Never heard, that the activity in the background really matters.
I mean I'm not amazing, had 0 friends to help me, and I still got likes (Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge). So how did I solve the "friends in a picture" issue if I had 0 friends? Go to bars. Hang out and chat with people. Somehow organically bring it up and take a pic. Boom, looks like you have friends haha. I've done it numerous times and it works flawlessly for that. Bars are also a great place to meet new friends. But at worst, you make them feel a tad uncomfortable but still make an attempt to have fun, while simultaneously benefiting you.
Take this for what you will, but if you're really struggling with dating, I highly recommend listening to the mating grounds podcast with Tucker Max. Say what you want about him, but his reasoning and extraordinarily sound. They have a "helping joe" series where they help this average dude date. Also with some other PhD guy whom I can't remember and another frat like dude. Just don't walk in with prejudices about who they are. They know their stuff hence why the topic of dating isn't difficult for them.
I'm not sure I follow. Are you saying that simply being an SWE is enough to signal that "I don't give up at the first sign of weakness and I am extremely motivated." and that this is enough to be with attractive women?
That might account for them living at home, but not for not pursuing a job.
this provides some context for why some women immediately balk when they see my playstation controller and vr headset on the west elm media cabinet
"[oh god] are you ... a gamer ??"
I feel like a lot of people can't differentiate between potential partners that own a console versus whatever gamer addict they're afraid of. thinking about it, that's a decent heuristic given how many gamers bring toxic ideas with them, even if they aren't neglecting other responsibilities for games
nice that you don't experience or do that
Online dating sucks for most men - if you're not in the top 2% of attractiveness for men it is a waste of your time (especially in skewed markets like the bay area), you're better off going places to meet people in person and working on your social skills that way (I think your friend is right).
Nothing exposes that more than writing video games yourself, as well as having a job testing them.
There ya go. That's all video games are.The fake courtesy of software irks me, too.
Some video games are essentially the same as that. For instance, creative-mode minecraft seems to be arts and crafts as much as it is a game.
I love story based games, indie games, etc. I think creative games like Minecraft are similarly worthwhile too.
Things like:
- Gone Home
- Life is Strange
- Firewatch
- Tacoma
- Elsinore
- Untitled Goose Game
There's lots of great stuff out there that isn't just a slot machine. Unfortunately slot machines make a lot of money so you also get WoW, and GTA ruined by GTA Online, in-app purchase corrupting content into Zynga style everything.
Kudos to Apple for trying to combat this with Apple Arcade.
This blogger reviews an interesting game, he also writes a lot about fake achievement: https://pixelpoppers.com/2018/05/close-reading-of-qube-direc...
7 years working in startups -> long dry spells between a few one night stands. Eventually I gave up trying to form a connection with anyone. I had plenty of cash but life just felt empty and lonely.
One day I had enough and picked up a remote job and started traveling. The dating pool gets a lot better when you leave the united states. I had met a great girlfriend within a month of staying in Colombia.
Bay area -> make your money and get out as soon as you have the connections. its not worth staying.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS11300001
I am also an exception to this rule (I am employed but I live at home). Currently I'm saving for a down payment to a Condo / House.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LREM25MAUSM156S
Also, a topic that has been surprisingly quiet is that employment-population rate absolutely cratered to a near 50-year low during the pandemic. We had a positive report in the UNRATE last week, but participation is still digging out of an historic hole.
Afaik, career men working hours went up after women went to work. The culture of overwork went up.
Here I plotted the labor force participation rate of women and men plus the sum of both. While the rate for men declines, the one for women increases.
Update: here is a new graph without the assumption that there are equally many men and women (participation rates for each are now multiplied by the population size of each and normalized to total population). The interesting part is that the total labor participation rate is moving very little, just between ~59-67%.
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=EFG8
// OLD: The sum of both moves between 120 and 135% (assumption here is that there are roughly as many men as there are women which should be approximately correct): https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=EFEs
Obviously, the percentage of women in the workforce shot up after anti-discrimination laws were applied to sex, but since the turn of the century, that trend has leveled off and reversed. If you just look at the last 20 years, the percentage of men and women in the work force have both been going down.
Using your own, new chart (EFG8), which I used DoL statistics to verify [1], the overall labor force participation rate dropped from 67 in 2000 to 63 right before the pandemic hit, almost monotonically. What happened 20 years ago?
[1]: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/wb/data/facts-over-time/women-i... (specifically, "Labor force participation rate by sex, race and Hispanic ethnicity")
Then I moved to an unincorporated community in TN, because NYC's lockdowns, mask mandates, and general cultural decay was too much for me to bear - financially, emotionally, and even ethically.
I now own 15 acres of land with two houses on it. The median income in this part is <40k/yr and yet it's safer, friendlier, healthier, and best of all, much freer. High cost of living is a true killer of communities and the more expensive your area is, it's quite likely it's also a lot less free.
If you can leave the major cities in the US, it's possible for life to become a whole lot nicer.
Any hint that dense urban living is not the optimal lifestyle for everyone gets downvoted here. For example, here's my super-controversial anecdote from yesterday, that people took time out of their day to try to bury: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27450896
It turns out the steady dopamine faucet is a stronger motivator than going out and trying to flirt, date, make friends, network, or hustle. Just spending time on the PC isn't even particularly fun, but as soon as someone proposes plans I suddenly feel like backing out and retreating back into my own world. I definitely sense this isn't "normal" for men and it's probably a consequence of modernity.
Why go out and compete for money, success and sex when those things are at your fingertips. I really think it’s as simple as “turn off the TV”. The problem is that the world is a hard place, and games/porn offer a “good enough” alternative that offsets the trouble of putting yourself out there.
Sorry for making this thread weird by bringing porn in.
While porn might be a particularly good example, there's plenty of other traps as well. Social media, games, gambling, ...
All that is geared towards maximized 'engagement', e.g. to make us as addicted as possible in as little time as possible. It plays into our worst tendencies.
https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/
This seems to be an issue across the board, at least in degrees, but that's because we live in an extractive oligarchy. This can't last forever. I just hope it doesn't lead to either revolution or socialism. We need to rethink our economic principles. Capitalism as state-sponsored usury or as consumerist decadence is not viable, just, or good.
Recall that in the 1950s, the single income of a working father sufficed to support a wife and their many children (since birth rates were much higher then). You can't do that anymore. That seems like a massive regression. We may have more flavors of ice cream, but who cares if that comes at the price of the important stuff. I say this without idealizing those decades. Those are the decades, after all, that led us to where we are today.
"then staying home with the easy accomplishment of video games makes sense."
Well, it doesn't make sense from the perspective of human flourishing. There are other things that a person in that position can be doing rather than pissing his life away in masturbatory activities like video games. This speaks to a deeper demoralization in our society, and in this case, that of men, and not just those who are unemployed or living at home. Our culture sucks.
1. Most want to start business and become rich, not work for someone else. Starting business is difficult, needs lots of work, even if you are smart and hardworking, have capital to start, still you need social skills which present generation didn't develop, so getting along with others and leading others is still difficult which limits the success.
2. Anything you'll come up, there are guys who are already doing it better.
3. Work hard for what!? Beyond basic needs, even in dating women demand millionaires, average Joes are treated like disposable good for nothing who women say are creeps because they don't have money to build their IG brand and devour women with lavish gifts.
At the end of day, most people simply will not be motivated to take part in such system now that internet makes it possible for you to remotely live any life you dream of living even if it's only through some YouTube. A lot of things now seem less enticing.
Even guys who society might say are successful can't afford real estate at today's price, only way to afford considerable land is to move away from cities but moving away from cities also takes away your income source.
All these reasons are why I don't hustle hard anymore. I just try to make enough to coast in life and explore my hobbies, not working hard to get rich or any such goal. Because I don't really see how more money will change my life.
Your third point about dating, I couldn't disagree more. If you go on social media you will see arguments very similar to the one you made, basically if you aren't an athlete/millionaire/etc, don't even bother. I think these arguments come from a bitter place and as a result generalize women in general. I'm an average looking dude, certainly not a millionaire, but I go on dates pretty much every week with different women. I found that it's all about just putting yourself out there.
You might be underselling yourself. In any major city, being average isn’t sufficient. You’re just swiped over for the next guy who is above average. (They always exist on the apps, nearly infinite amount)
You realize many women feel this exact same way about being ignored because men just want models out of their league?
Regardless of how women feel men are acting towards them, the stats don’t lie, women receive far more swipes than men. Something like 36x more.
(This is pure speculation based on my experiences) Out here I've noticed that Tinder and Bumble are just terrible to use, Hinge though seems to be the sweet spot. The problem I see with Tinder and Hinge is with the swiping, it turns it into a game of sorts where you're playing whose post attractive based on the number of points (matches) you get. With how Hinge is setup, I get fewer matches, but of those matches, I end up going on first dates much more often.
I also found that it's about playing the algorithm a bit and making sure your profile is setup right, think of it in terms conversion rate (from being in the "This person liked you" section to matching with someone). Before I started having success I went through probably 10+ iterations and tweaks to my profile to see what worked and what didn't. I also found that sometimes the algorithm just said F you and pushed me down to the bottom of the stack. In that case delete your profile and recreate it, I've had to do this once.
Outside is quite overrated. Unless you’re in a particular niche where forced interaction is a thing or you’re exposed to an endless amount of people who are interested in partnering, you’re going to have a bad time. (Even compared to online dating, the real world sucks a lot more these days for the average man - as you’re always competing with both even if you opt out of one) Add on the typical issues we have in our culture and well - it’s practically taboo to approach people these days out of the blue outside an app.
I’ve got a lot of experience with online and offline (“outside”) and both are quite horrific for the average man. Hell, I’m exceptional in some areas and I have had a hell of a hard time anyway. People really want their niche - whatever that is.
I’ve been fortunate to find someone and mostly fit their niche but it was a long road. A lot of people who wanted everything and expected to give nothing.
1. From what I have seen most people want a job that pays for their lifestyle and isn't soul destroying. Sure people fantasize about becoming a successful entrepreneur, but certainly not most and not enough to give up on work in general.
3. This is frankly ridiculous and such a blatantly false view of what women want that it borders on incel philosophy. It appears entirely based on the extremely exaggerated and polarized views seen on social media rather than the far more moderate and balanced views the average person you come across will have. Most women do not demand millionaires. This is readily apparent if you talk to real women instead of only watching TikTok and Instagram models.
This is a ridiculous caricature of women. Most women aren't spending their time building IG brands, counting lavish gifts, and petulantly demanding millionaires. This sounds like a cartoon villain or something from a reality TV show.
Most women are trying to find their place in the world, figure out their goals, establish a career with reasonable prospects, work on hobbies, create a support network of friends, and hopefully find a partner to start a family.
If your attitude towards women is that they are money-hungry, delusionally entitled, and over-demanding then I'm not surprised they don't waste their time trying to convince you otherwise. They are busy spending time with people and looking for partners who don't treat them like delusional, spoiled children.
yes but this accurate in describing what the last couple women I was with were like. they were both women who approached me first, whatever that might tell you.
It is Anedacta... but I think I know what is going on.
1. The labor market is a mess, for example today I got another rejection letter from a job I sent my resume, thing is, I am literally perfect for the job, my resume (that I didn't tailor for it) matched perfectly what they asked, even the "additional" things, including the fact they wanted someone that made Hidden Object games before (I had a whole company to make those with millions of downloads).
I have a strong impression hiring is just screwed, people often don't even read resumes, for example I had a company invite me to do a job I don't know how to do, only for the interviewer of the company realize they are wasting time (a company asked me to do ML work, I never listed ML anywhere in my resume).
Also I am 33 now, and never had a job registered legally in my country, I only had contracts and "contracts".
Also here having internship is mandatory to graduate, a lot of my friends failed to graduate beause they didn't found any internship even for free, to graduate myself I actually created a company and hired myself (it is legal to do that O.o).
Now relationshipwise: I looked for relationships very hard, and kept finding only people wnating flings, including one person that scammed me (she claimed she would marry me and whatnot to convince me to have sex with her, since I wanted to marry virgin, after she got bored with me she declared that all she wanted was my body and kicked me out).
Only reason I managed to marry at all, is that I went to a church, found a childhood friend there that also wanted to marry and was having similar issues, and I asked her right off the bat if she wanted to marry me then, and she said yes. (we are very happy, for those wondering...)
If it wasn't for a lucky coincincidence (in case you don't believe in God or something... I only went to that church because my car broke that day when I was going elsewhere and going that church was in the situation at the time the logical option) I probably would still be alone.
Same thing applies to a lot of my friends, many, many of them are single, and jobless, after a while some of them just give up on living properly and settle for videogames... videogames are not the culprit, they are the escape, they are a solution to have a life, even if virtual, after your real life becomes seemly impossible to live.
EDIT: by the way, student debt doesn't help, for example I did got "legal" job offers, but to earn mininum wage (for example supermarket cashier), thing is, my student debt monthly payments was roughly twice the mininum wage, so accepting a mininum wage legal job would put me in further debt. Thankfully my Startup Kidoteca was a reasonable success and I paid my debts with it.
After my first startup failed I was rejected for developer jobs, and a few places said it was because they thought I'd want to quit and start a new company rather than stay there for the long haul. More anecdata obviously, but some employers see someone's previous independence as a forewarning of that person looking for independence again in the near future.
I really wanted that job. That’s only the most recent, but I have had an overwhelming number of these experiences. I know my own worth, but to convince someone to actually let you work for them - impossible.
What we've built instead for more than half a century is continuous radiating sprawl.
Even suburbs cannot afford all of their ongoing infrastructure obligations, and why you see many dilapidated areas.
This is all becoming apparent now because birthrates have plummeted hence what used to be masked by economic growth due to sheer population growth no longer has the ability to be papered over with increased tax collections due to increased population.
Unfortunately, there's talk of shutting it down[2] due to low ridership stemming from the pandemic.
[1] https://www.metrotransit.org/northstar
[2] https://outline.com/smYCML (startribune.com paywall)
Then we can run autonomous vehicles (private and corporate) over the same infrastructure.
The issue is human overpopulation, not our society’s “failure” to destroy the fabric of closely knit communities.
Humans are by far the least efficient life form on this planet, and what little enjoyment most humans get out of life mostly comes down to the integrity of their local communities: their safety, their health, their prosperity. Yet we’ve become so hyperfocused on economic growth that we’ve turned our larger society into a malignant tumor unto Earth, while ironically an increasingly high proportion of humans lead unhappy, unfulfilled lives.
Why do so many people just accept the answer is more growth? Until we can master interstellar travel, we have to contend with finite physical resources.
There is very much not a direct relationship between absolute number of humans, and technological advancement. This is increasingly true as we inch closer to AGI.
There very much absolutely is a direct and bidirectional link between the two. Technological advancement (esp fetilizers) has been crucial to the increase in the absolute number of humans to its current level.
There is also good reason to think that there are direct effects in the opposite direction. There seems likely to be a minimum population that can support the degree of specialization needed for a given level of technological advancement.
But while there absolutely is a direct relationship, I don't think that your core point is necessarily wrong. The minimum population required to maintain our current level of technology might well be one or more magnitudes less than our current population. Our current population may well be sufficient to achieve the level of technology required to become a space habitating species.
(E.g. you don’t seem to be arguing increasing the human population by X% leads to X% technological advancement.)
Current human population levels are ecologically unsustainable without several major shifts taking place — Sir David Attenborough counts regulating the human population size among them [1].
[1]: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/10/david-attenborough-wa...
That is not correct. I laid out the effects in both directions.
50 people can support much smaller degree of specialization than 50 million people can. This should be fairly obvious, so I am not sure why it needs to be restated.
Why don't I?
Because I'm not spending $250,000+ on 1400sq ft. These types of articles make it seem like some huge mystery as to why society is the way it is today. It's no mystery. Houses cost to much and employers don't pay enough.
Maybe that would be something to pivot towards. Start with volunteer work. "Let's clean up the beach 6/10". People could earn karma/upvotes from the others who also contributed that's worthless like here, or to spend on stuff donated.
And I'd call it 4us.
Some day it will happen. :)
Anyone in this area would now laugh at my previous situation; I certainly do. We briefly considered buying a slightly larger house in the area, but everything is going for about $800k now.
If I were just entering the job and housing market today here in the PNW, I would absolutely stay with my parents if I could. And I rather expect that my kids won't move out at 18.
That being said, I learned recently that for the same prices you would pay here you can get a castle in Europe... so I made that my retirement goal.
I bought a house young(26) and spent a good part of the next 16 years working on it. Sure, I enjoyed some of it, but much of it I did not. I did make money with the appreciation, but I also spent a lot on repairs and improvements. If I had focused on my career and my hobbies, I'd be richer and happier now. That all said, I didn't have kids. Maybe if I did I'd think it was worth it. Society puts a high value on having a home though, and much of that is bullshit. The world wants you to think owning a home will complete your life and signify your success but it is much more complicated than that.
Homes tie you down. They're fairly illiquid assets. Transactional costs are huge. Neighborhood issues can significantly affect your quality of life and net worth while remaining nearly completely outside your control.
For myself, I actually worked in the mortgage industry for a few years and nothing jaded me about homeownership more. It's a monumental scam unless you're a DINK family and maybe live in a condo. That's a bit smarter but the most expensive option out of all types of living usually.
SFH under 2000 sqft are going for well $1.5M.
Inventory is near all time lows.
This is so true. I'd take it further -- for many (not for most of us developers/engineers) but for many others, the choice to move out is a very risky one because you're constantly on a thin line between paying student loans, mortgage/rent, and other costs of employment and wages may not grow while costs continue to grow. I've seen people just give up and enjoy what they have -- a parent's home at the cost of employment. Remember that it costs money to earn money if you need to move to a metro area and that cost can exceed the actual income, especially if it is a job without wage growth.
I think semi-permanent WFH changes the equation quite a bit -- one can now live with parents, earn, and save up money to hopefully cross the chasm into the world of sustainable ownership.
This is what I'm doing I'm a software dev in my early 30's. A couple of years ago I moved back in with my parents for some health related reasons after being on my own for a decade or so, and ended up staying with them for another health reason.
Then COVID happened and the job I started 6 months earlier went full time remote. Previously I intended to move back to the city because my commute sucked. They've since terminated office leases and seem to be intending to go full time remote for another significant period of time if not permanently. I am saving an insane amount of money and I intend to stay with my parents as long as is feasible.
In a strange way, COVID is the best thing to ever happen to me financially. Home ownership in a dream location is looking to be a feat within reach in less than a decade.
there is nothing at that price point (or below) that i would consider worth the current cost, in any of the cities that I actually want to live in. and even if I found something, it's so unfair that my property tax rate would be so much higher compared to others (california)
i'm just going to save money, invest in things that arent real estate, and emigrate at some point. i think the only exception is if I married someone who was given a house by their family. not too unlikely in the bay area or in southern california, but it's still not something i can bank on. i wouldn't even want to if it was.
Renting on the other hand is money out the door. You're not building any equity.
On one hand, there shouldn't be anything shameful about living "at home", especially if it's purposeful. (looking back, it probably would have made sense to stay with my folks even longer than I did in order to save more money)
Yet living at home and not building anything into late adulthood tends not to be a good way to generate intergenerational wealth. Until the international economic paradigm changes, I can't see how it's a good thing for people to have nothing to pass on to their children.
I have a very multicultural background, but the dominant cultural view, at least when it comes to money, is Chinese.
For us, living at home is not failure. Moving out without planning to start a family if you live in the same city as your parents is considered wasting money.
Of course they aren't always true individually (I know some of my facebook colleagues lived at home) but from a rough demographic perspective, it's true.
We do this a lot: consider that teen pregnancy is understood to be unwanted, thwarting educational opportunities, etc. but in some religious communities a 17 year-old might be married and ready to bear children. It's just that's a very small proportion, and doesn't diminish that teen pregnancy is generally considered a problem.
For an early death
They're already in their early-mid 30s, what outcome do you think is going to happen to make them even less integrated into society?
Having no rent cost is pretty big.
I have seen the results of not doing this. Don’t pass the pain down. You want your children to succeed, but you also don’t want them to suffer needlessly. Being homeless is an incredibly difficult gravity well to escape, more so without appreciable skills.
(not an attorney or financial planner, not your attorney or financial planner, please consult one of each, educational purposes only)
Both they (your nephews) and the radical feminists in charge (eg: Biden/Harris Administration) look at this situation without blinking and both come to the same conclusion, "if they're employed then they're taking a job away from a woman" and "not a bug, working as intended, won't-fix."
I’ve been ‘born again’ twice, once after opiate addiction and once after alcohol. I had an adult parent enabling me throughout as well. Two rock bottom moments, after the first I decided to disregard the advice I was given, and it didn’t take. The second time, I was humbled and did the work by heeding the advice I was given again. Sober house and outpatient after the inpatient stay, getting a job after outpatient, going to meetings for a year, and staying sober.
Almost 6 years later, I went from making $10/hr part time to a salaried position making low six figures in total compensation. I have a much healthier relationship with my adult enabler parent and have paid back a substantial amount of the money I guilted them out of over the years. My relationships with family have never been better, I have a great partner, and a job I enjoy. It is possible to escape, but sometimes does require a rock bottom moment.
I also spent a considerable amount of time escaping into games and TV shows, there’s a lot of overlap there with drug addiction, escapism, gambling/day trading, etc.
As a parent of 4 kids who for various reasons are all at elevated risk for substance abuse, what can I do if/when this happens to one of my kids to not enable them?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Trust_Fund
(As a practical matter, it rarely comes to this as a couch-surfer will go find another couch instead of wasting money on attorneys and the like. But, typically, the owner of the property can’t just unilaterally decide a resident is a trespasser and kick them out.)
I think video game addiction is an incredibly underreported and highly destructive phenomenon. I encounter (and had to fire a few days ago) lots of young men who don't appear to ever sleep, and are highly unproductive, unmotivated, and constantly distracted. The kid I had to fire (I call him kid, but he was 28 and incredibly immature) reminded me of a former colleague in the construction industry who relapsed on his crack/cocaine addiction. Distracted, listless, kind of just there for the ride.
Edit: Apparently ASKING about video game addiction merits downvotes with zero responses explaining why.
They could do all sorts of things in their spare time, from watching tv shows, movies, youtube, anime, browsing reddit/twitter/instagram/tiktok, etc.
This is not to say that you should never play video games. I've found that they've been great for staying in touch with friends I would've otherwise lost touch with. A few hours a week isn't bad at all. It's just that it can snowball very quickly if you're not mindful about how you spend your time.
I luckily never really became addicted to any video games, but I'm concerned for my future children who will undoubtedly encounter video games in the future some day.
It permanently destroyed my interest in video games, along with the fake rewards it offers.
The dorm in college had a pinball machine, the old mechanical contraptions before LEDs took over. I was fascinated by them, but had no money, so playing them was a rare treat (10 cents a game, 25 for 3 games). One day, the coin op broke, and free games galore. Yay!
After playing that continuously for hours, something broke in me, and I just couldn't stand playing pinball anymore.
I honestly cannot fathom people managing to spend their lives playing video games.
The same thing happened to me with fireworks. I grew up fascinated by fireworks, and would blow every penny on them on the 4th. One day, in college, I had enough cash to buy all I wanted. I bought a lot. Went out to a field, and started lighting and throwing the black cats one by one. Bang, bang, bang. Some hours went by, again something broke. I haven't bought fireworks since. I have no interest in firework displays. The needle doesn't even move.
Go figure.
Never lost my interest in muscle cars, though :-) I grin like an idiot when I drive mine.
Of course, the parents played a part in enabling this. Their mom (my sis) will often suggest I buy them video games for their birthday/Christmas but I refuse to do that. What they need is a kick in the ass to get them outside.
That's not video games though, that's the general digital addiction going on. And honestly, as a teenager I used to avoid everyone with books and I doubt anyone would have described me as addicted to a paper drug.
That’s what most people are getting their hit of when they’re staring at a screen during a family gathering.
Games are the mild stuff in comparison (so long you steer clear of gambling and the ‘basically-gambling’ of loot box-based games)
He was failing out of school and had lost interest in sports. I put all of his Xbox controllers in a safe and if he wants to play games he has to maintain a straight a average and be playing at least one sport or have a after-school job.
Within about 2 weeks he was back on track at school and is now a straight a student again.
Obviously this is just an anecdote but I don't think he was suffering from any form of anxiety or anything like that. He got hooked on the games and then his brain was just unable to be excited by other things for a long time.
Very few things in the real world are as optimized as the playing experience and overwatch or the social aspects of fortnite.
I don’t think it directly causes issues as much as it enables or locks in certain behaviorally patterns such as being a NEET or similar. It’s really more of a symptom of a lack of support system in a person’s life, the same way social media overuse or drug abuse comes about.
Real addictions have severe physical consequences like chemical withdrawals that can lead to death.
I find that Self-Determination Theory is a good model to look at this with. Modern school and work life provide little autonomy, little relatedness, and little (desirable/appreciated) skill for the vast majority of people whereas video games do the opposite by providing essentially an ideal playground.
You are stating this in absolute terms, which indicates to me that you have a solid source, or are an expert in the field. If so, can you please detail?
From my background working in psychiatry (in-patient) for six years, it is certainly not that clear.
> Real addictions have severe physical consequences like chemical withdrawals that can lead to death.
So the sex addicts I treated didn't have a "real" addiction?
The gambling addicts I treated didn't either?
Or the extreme adrenaline addicts?
Also, many experts in the field seem to disagree with you. See the proposed internet gaming disorder [1].
https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/internet-gaming
People don't seem to understand that drugs like cocaine flood the brain with dopamine and that's exactly what these video games are designed to do by the psychologists the game companies hire. I don't get why people don't seem to understand that it's alarming when video game companies are hiring people from the gambling industry in Vegas.
I worried about my own son playing video games incessantly through his teens and twenties, but now at 28 he has been holding down a stable job for a year and I have got good reports from his employer. He's still a loner IRL though.
Would I worry so much if he were a gym rat or ultramarathoner-- an "exercise addict"? Good question.
But competing in a lot of ultramarathons isn't necessarily healthy for the long term either. In extreme cases athletes end up with heart muscle scarring and calcification. Somewhat shorter distances might be better. Everything in moderation.
Too often people think that because their kid is introverted they shouldn't be alarmed by them not having a social network of any kind. The reality is that there are many many very healthy introverts who still have strong friendships with other people. I'm only saying this because I've seen too often people write off their children's bad lifestyle choices as simply being introverted.
I don't think I got so freaked out by video game addiction until working at my last company where we hired a bunch of people from the gaming industry. They were the ones who told me about how many top-notch behavioral psychologist are employed in the gaming industry to maximize the addictive potential of video games.
We can say what we will about exercise addicts but at least they are getting very healthy bodies and the highly positive mental health benefits of exercise. Plus when you're in a gym or if you are running trail marathons you are going to be doing so with other people who don't sit in there darkened rooms for days on end.
We don't expect everyone to be able to run a 10-minute mile, even though most people can. Likewise we shouldn't expect everyone to be able to hold down a 40+ hour-a-week job and "functional adult" life, even though most people can.
not so different than runaway teenagers, or ex-Mormons that escape Utah
I was quite addicted to video games until my early 20s, but I eventually understood that gaming falls down the priority list as you take on more responsibilities in life. My friends were the same.
My university roommate played video games nonstop. Then he graduated, got a job (as a video game developer) and has a wife and three kids. It's like any addiction, its filling a void, but the object of abuse is not what's to blame.
None of these stories have issue that started at 24. They all have parents enabling the kid ever since kid was 6.
An ideal situation requires pressure to succeed, while also providing resources and guidance to be successful.
I will tell you it is a LOT more complicated than this. This type of single point simplification and pronouncement about 'coddling' is decidedly unhelpful.
For starters, if you grow up in two working parent household, both parents can easily come home completely exhausted and unable to provide the extended engagement necessary to help a child develop. Add in the social pressures of school where EVERYONE has an iphone and games where it is socially isolating not to do these things - which carries its own set of risks. Add in a public education system that doesn't focus on development and instead focuses on learning material. Add in an economy designed to optimize extraction of capital from individuals through psychological programming and ads and more stuff to buy.
None of this has to have a single source of blame, much of its realistically structural and cultural. It isn't one bad actor or one failed thing...it is a large number of individuals, groups, and organizations individually performing Goodhart's law and the result is some get cast aside.
FWIW I do have friends that were forced out of the house at 18. At the time I was the same age and I thought it was harsh. Many years later though, I can see that it worked out just fine.
The fact that the parents are providing a roof over their head and paying for their food/water/electricity/internet/clothes/games/etc is why they haven't had a job nor any desire for one well into their 30s.
Honestly, because the parents keep providing for them, there's no impetus for them to change, so they may as well do this into their 40s or 50s.
Minimum wage is enough to survive, and almost anyone that's not severely mentally/physically disabled can do most minimum wage work. In this case, it's not a matter of lack of ability, but lack of willingness.
That said, I have nothing against parents willing to provide housing/support if the child is working, still furthering their education, or need some help getting their feet back on the ground. But at this point, this is none of that, and just enabling their behavior.
I'm in my 30s and have now seen several high school classmates with similarly poor prospects eventually succumb to drug overdoses.
2) don’t assume rich kids don’t opt in to homelessness
When all the goals are chosen for you, it does not matter if you were over-protected or not. You cannot build true self esteem and confidence if you don't succeed and/or fail at a dream of your choice. There is no point learning to drive a car if you do not know where you want to go, to earn money if you don't know what you want to buy, and to get into a career if you have no sense of purpose.
Videogames are addictive not only because they are fun, they provide you with a goal and 'achievements'. In my humble opinion, sex for the sake of sex (real or porn), promotions for the sake of promotions or else are all caused by the same emotional male problem ; the inability to feel emotions and learn from them what is truly important for yourself. The % of young men in the labour force is just a symptom of that.
My opinion now is that sense of purpose AND being able to support yourself are essential; you have cash balance to keep in check with the tribe, and an emotional balance to keep in check with yourself. An adult should be able to do both. I think that people who do the former without doing the later may succeed economically, but on the long run they drain everybody and subconsciously expect others to take care of their own emotions. My father was like that, and his own children don't call him 'daddy'.
I also think its a very male difficulty, because boys learn to suppress emotions at a young age. It makes it harder to find meaningful careers, but also to sustain relationships and to evolve in your spirituality. Men drop out of school, do not enter the workforce, and lament that tinder is unfair. In my humble opinion, it is a purpose problem, not a ''how do I clean my room'' problem.
It worked for me when my parents kicked me out. Took around a decade though.
Or they end up as homeless drug addicts.
Both outcomes have a none neglible likelihood.
You are correct to observe that people at the bottom are being left behind.
Youth unemployment in Spain or Italy is clearly structural.
The story as conveyed by OP is textbook people being lazy.
Sure, I also have the "desire" to play video games and do nothing all day, I just realize that it's not going to end well for me...
The contractor who just renovated my house in Colorado is actively looking for a low-skill, high-effort worker for $35/hour.
The mason who did some stone work for me is looking for an apprentice and will pay $25/hour.
The electrician in my area is moving away, leaving a huge gap in the market. He earns well north of $200k/year.
The jobs are out there.
The jobs are out there AND DO NOT PAY ENOUGH TO LIVE IN THE AREAS THEY ARE IN.
And before some genius comes in and says "Well don't live in those expensive cities then", those expensive cities still want burgers and stocked store shelves and everything else, they just don't want to pay people enough to live off of.
It's nice. My dad makes us lunches, my mom cooks dinners, and I do yardwork. My girlfriend lives a few miles away with her parents, who are great. We regularly eat with one family or the other, and we often sleep together at one house or the other. We use the family cars.
Except for the job, we'd be considered failures for this nice life.
As far as I can tell, he'll sit on his couch collecting disability until 65, at which point he'll switch to retirement.
But is that one thing going to stop him from ever working/living a productive life?
If you lose disability by starting to work, suddenly life becomes a lot more expensive and you can't afford things.
The Welfare Gap is real.
To be eligible in your own right, you have to have paid into Social Security for a total of 40 quarters before becoming disabled. Given child labor laws, it's rare that you could accumulate enough quarters before age 26 or so.
The other way is to be eligible on a parent's social security, as a "disabled child", which is defined as someone who became disabled before age 22. If you suffered a permanent disability at age 21, and have a parent who paid enough into SS to be eligible, you can receive "child" benefits from their account even as an adult: https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/disability/qualify.html#anchor7
This leaves an unfortunate gap for people who genuinely become permanently disabled due to an accident or medical condition that happens around age 22-25, because they can't qualify through either route.
Looks like there are different rules for disability for young workers:
"To be eligible for disability benefits, you must meet a recent work test and a duration work test.
The number of credits necessary to meet the recent work test depends on your age. The rules are as follows:
Before age 24 - You may qualify if you have 6 credits earned in the 3-year period ending when your disability starts.
Age 24 to 31 – In general, you may qualify if you have credit for working half the time between age 21 and the time you become disabled. As a general example, if you become disabled at age 27, you would need 3 years of work (12 credits) out of the past 6 years (between ages 21 and 27).
Age 31 or older - In general, you must have at least 20 credits in the 10-year period immediately before you become disabled."
-- https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/retirement/planner/credits.html
The flip side is this person is hurting society significantly less than some committing crimes - even worse crimes that are sentenced to jail time (which is very expensive).
From an environmental perspective, this kind of minimalist lifestyle actually seems quite healthy. They don't drive, and I assume they don't fly or buy a lot of stuff, so their carbon and other resource footprint is small. They don't take up much extra space, so they reduce suburban sprawl and land required for housing. They probably won't have kids, which further reduces their environmental impact. Maybe we should encourage more people to live this way.
Sounds like an episode of Black Mirror. Life is meant to be lived; the purpose of life is at least eudaimonia, not slowly rotting away in front of a computer.
Many video games similarly skip time to focus on heroic moments. You don't role-play the 10,000 hours studying tomes at Hogwarts to become a 1st level wizard; instead you start the adventure at graduation, or at most do a training montage.
Nah, the grandparent knows exactly well the good old times were the decades of toil and hardship. The kids won't get it if the grandparent tells these core truths anyways, until they live it.
The problem is sustainability.
A virtual life cannot sustain itself indefinitely, and is not very robust. If money runs out or a tragedy occurs, it will be a scramble to get a job and interact in the real world. A virtual life does not contribute to society (if we mean a purely passive virtual life), and if people start adopting it en masse we'd be in trouble.
As far as I can see, we could simply try create a virtual life (or any kind of activity) that both is sustainable, and gives an interesting, engrossing life experience.
I guess it's just not ready yet.
I see a lot of Jordan Peterson-esque BS professing these “no biological father == neet” rules, and I’m not saying that’s the point you’re leading with your question, but am jumping at any opportunity to dispel it, just in case.
It’s not even an outlier experience, either. Even among high achievers. Consider that ~50% of African American NBA players and ~20% of white NBA players come from a single parent household. [0]
0: https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.86...
If you can explicitly state the ‘metrics under discussion’ I’ll give an honest response a go, but I really don’t know what you’re saying here.
It's not a popular sentiment... But it was required as part of our certification in california. When separated from mom and dad, they call it the primal wound, but our society accepts separating children from one parent without any of the guilting they require adoptive parents to go through.
From a purely empirical standpoint, in aggregate, biological father's are the least likely to hurt or kill their children. Both adoptive father's and step father's are more likely to. Says nothing about individuals, but as a society it would behoove the powers that be to ensure most kids are raised by bio parents. And by far most states adopt this approach, even to the point of absurdity.
Two distant family members of mine fit this description fairly well...One was raised in an unstable, low income household, with mentally ill parents, is on the autism spectrum, and both parents worked multiple jobs that included overnight shifts. There was no ability, energy, or understanding to seek assistance and intervention early enough to make a difference. The other family member comes from effectively the complete opposite end of each one of those variables.
Ultimately I didn't know anything when I left home at 18 and I figured it out. Other people can too. How long does it take to learn how to drive, open a checking account, cook, pay bill, etc. after all ? You can learn these things privately over the Internet so there's no longer a social stigma holding you back. To digress, I eventually taught my older brother responsibility, job skills (he worked at my business), how to file taxes, basic math, etc. He became even more bitter and resentful and then one day broke down and admitted how painful it is to know nothing useful and most of what he does know he had to learn from his little brother. But eventually he started just Googling instead of calling me when he had a question he should know the answer to.
I truly feel sorry for these lost souls and if I hadn't been naturally good at math, I'd likely be one of them.
There is an incredible amount of shame and self-directed anger and fear in men who have found themselves in this position.
All of those feelings are heavy to carry, but they can be shoved aside and ignored by constant entertainment (video games, tv binges etc). Shoved aside they don’t hurt as bad.
But those feelings don’t go away. They get bigger as each year goes on & they flare up when confronted with having to do something they aren’t capable of doing (or think they aren’t capable) like moving out, getting a job, getting a better job, having an adult relationship etc.
Those feelings of inadequacy have to be taken on and grace & forgiveness has to be granted to oneself in order for them to spread their wings / leave the nest and not come back.
For me, the question is how do you get someone so deep into a dark emotional morass to take on the emotional dragons they’ve been hiding from?
What worked for me was a hero's dose of mushrooms, and about a 4-5 hour talk with the universe to shift my perspective 180 degrees.
You're not wrong generally, but this one costs about $1000 where I live, which is close to average national monthly salary and approximately twice the minimum salary.
Not pocket change for someone who has trouble finding work (and many jobs require driver's license).
Then a year ago I just called a driving school near my parents house on her behalf. I offered to pay for everything including study time and taxi rides to and from the school. Whatever it took. She said she still needed more time to read the book, but I said the school would help her. So when the time finally came to schedule a pickup time, she texted me and just said that she isn't interested in learning to drive.
So that basically ended our relationship since this lie was too much. Now the only lever I have left is shunning her for her irresponsible life-style choices that put a burden on others. It has had no effect on her but at least I sleep better.
I doubt that.
It sounds to me like none of your family does a very good job of understanding her. The behavior you describe sounds much less like someone who is uninterested in driving and more like someone who has significant anxiety around that activity that they are surpressing.
(The previous comment used to include something about people wanting to quit their jobs and just play games all day) For your point about playing games all day — there’s definitely some aspect of “having a purpose” that makes some hold down a job even if they are already rich. So for some it’s definitely their life dream to sit in their room all day, and for some having something that you can point to saying “I contributed this” is an invaluable part of their lives
My life was held back by time spent gaming for so long and later in life I realized TV was doing the same. Moderation in all things right? For me it is easier to cut them out period.
I'm happier and have a far more productive life as a result. I'm now in my 40s and have productive life and career but this didn't start until my mid 30s.
Boredom is intolerable.
Humans inevitably become more creative and/or social to escape boredom. See what you're drawn to when you cut out media consumption. You can always go back to reddit after a few months if you've just been bored the entire time.
Psychology obviously can't always be simplified, but I think a key component underlying when consumption goes in a bad direction is why someone is using.
If you're playing videogames because your life is otherwise fine and you want to sprinkle some leisure on top, it's fine. Hell, you can play for hours a day and it's not really a problem if you're content with the time spent.
But if you're playing videogames as an avoidance strategy for underlying psychological problems, then you're setting yourself up for addiction. Because avoidance tends to cause those problems to grow. You aren't working on them, and seeing yourself avoid them subconsciously sends a signal that the problem is too big for you to handle. So the whole time you're avoiding, you're building it up bigger and bigger.
I have hope for people who are addicted to video games though, because I know they have obtained the knowledge/capability to figure out the underlying metagames and redeploy those skills to other areas of their life. And judging by the anecdotes on this thread it looks promising.
Now imagine if they're addicted to drugs; They'll be having another health problem to resolve. If you have a choice of being addicted to something at least let it be video games.
I remember one lady in particular tried desperately to see if we could get her son a job. He'd taken a crane operator course but was scared of heights. He wouldn't even come in the room or speak with us.
The thing is, this guy didn't even seem to help at home. His mom had went out and mowed the entire very large, very sloped front yard before she came in to ask us about a job for her son. He sat in the basement the whole time.
Or the time on a weekday afternoon, dude comes out in his jimjams yelling at his mom to make breakfast while she's trying to deal with us in her kitchen which was mostly not usable.
Then there was all the people in that age range i worked with who would last less than a week. People who'd show on their first day and immediately ask when break time was or people who'd just walk out half way through the day or people who'd just straight up say they don't care and they'd rather be at home smoking weed.
Anyway, this got a bit ranty, i've got plenty more stories from over the years. Suffice to say, this is a trend i've seen a lot over the years first hand.
I guess part of it is the fact that my circumstances didn't even make that lifestyle an option. By my late teen years it was increasingly obvious that I had to go in the kind of direction I did if I wanted my family to have a decent life. If I had a middle class nuclear family, is it likely that I would've tore through CS classes and leetcode as much as I did? I kinda doubt it.
A family member of mine has not ever had a job. Everyone has tried to help him. I've given him two jobs at two different companies personally. His mom works at a dollar store and a cheap clothing store just to pay rent. She begs him to work. He spends all his time playing Xbox. She's gotten to the point where she's going to kick him out and move in with her other son. He's responded by drinking and hanging out with homeless junkies. Thank fuck as far as i know he hasn't started doing the strange purple heroin they do nowadays apparently and shit. But it's really terrible watching this. He's almost 30. There's no reason this should be happening.
Probably one of the reasons immigrants from poor backgrounds fare well.
So I did what I would have wanted. I walked over to the neighbor kid and asked "Would you take $550 to fix up our lawn?". He looked at me like I was an alien. He said one word, "no", then awkwardly walked away.
I would have killed to get a job offer like that in my early twenties, probably two days of work for $550! Would have grabbed a friend, six pack of beer and finished it -- that day -- and used the money for books!
Then again, I'm a father now and I can't imagine ever asking my daughter to leave home. But I would definitely expect her to have a job and contribute to household expenses well before her 30's.
Real life's feedback loops and progression mechanics are slow and unreliable when compared to games.
Plenty of people will read this comment and think that is not them but if there is not a point in your day when your phone is not on you, out of sights and out of reach for at least an hour you're not as "present" as you think.
A few people I know come to mind that reminds me of your nephews and I simply cannot understand it. Right now there are hiring signs up in almost every business in my town. I would rather work (if I could) than take unemployment even if it would be a pay cut.
Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEET
What do you mean by this? Some people on some online forums made some jokes?
Important side note: they're both major home bodies so they wouldn't take advantage of living in a cool neighborhood.
To me it makes such massive sense to just bum it in their seperate upstairs 800sqft apartment and cheap food/rent/etc to bootstrap their lives instead of moving out. But it's a fight.
Luckily so far she's moved him from being very much in the NEET camp to actually looking for a job. But covid completely nerfed my ability to push him to have a job last summer (his pre-junior summer).
I also would not have wanted to stay with my parents in my 20s though, at least not with my specific parents.
I've known people who lived at home for a year or two to save money, but I wouldn't have been able to have any independence.
It's not impossible to save that much money straight out of school, but if you're making that much then you could still save a decent chunk even if you're paying $2k/mo for an apartment (which comes to $100k over 4 years).
I'm just pointing out the possiblities for them.
185K delta between the two scenarios feels wrong, though - that's almost 4k a month, an astonishing high rent bill for a couple just out of college. The "find an apartment on their own for 1-2K, maybe even with roommates, but ideally just in a cheaper area" option should be seriously considered compared to living at home. Get a bunch more savings AND some very valuable life experience!
One end is living at home with a faang job. The other is them living on cap hill with around 3800 / month expenses and the 58k income you mentioned. The 3800 is her estimate which checks out.
There are obviously many more options in the decision matrix but this is a HN post :)
Versus them spending about $4k/month on living expenses out of house, 48k/year.
That's also assuming she has a FAANG job, not say, the same expenses but $58k/year starting data eng job.
many parents contribute to their children's first downpayment, if you can't or aren't interested then just leave the discussion.
they don't have consensus on wanting to live with you while you believe they have the skillsets to save $200,000 in 4 years. who gives af if there is a theoretical savings optimization possible, that's not your problem stop acting like it is.
you are going to have an empty nest, you'd be better off admitting thats what you are avoiding instead of acting like your concern is their savings potential, which is just coincidence. sure, I could be way off, but the constant is that you already gave them the support system to integrate into society, this seems largely successful so don't worry about those choices.
let the homebody go have the option of trying IPAs at all the microbreweries in walking distance. not your problem.
In some families, caring and advising continues past the 18th birthday. Northern European culture is the anomaly in this regard.
I will add something to your son's point: being independent from my family was more important to me than saving money, especially if their loans are only 4 years away from being paid off. In fact, it bootstrapped all kinds of good behaviors around how to socialize with others, make friends, find a job, fix my own toilet, do laundry, pay taxes, find a new hair stylist, shop for clothes, etc etc etc.
It gave me the independence to move even further, and find work paid literally 10x more in a few years. No amount of saving would make up for that.
I can't imagine how much more stagnate my life would be if I had done the "smart thing" and put my life on pause instead of doing what I wanted from the get go. Death is much less stressful to think about when you're living aligned with your goals and values.
Independence and personal space MATTER, please consider how your son may feel about living close to you. It may hurt, but it's important to understand the mindset behind the decision.
as an example, my dad used to always ask when he could expect me home when I went out. not being nosy, he just had a certain "night lock up" routine for the house. it wasn't an unreasonable question to get from a man who was paying for my housing and food, but it was a question I no longer wanted to answer at that point in my life.
Living near them 24/7 made me reflect much about my behavior around them and my desire for independence. Living together can become rough when trying to get privacy and even small differences in opinion/lifestyle can turn into intoxicating moments.
e.g. during breakfast my parents discuss their political opinions and I honestly disagree with all of them. I stay quiet to prevent controversy, but it’s one of those moments that ruin your morning.
They’ve been very hands off as well, but some micro interactions can get grating over long periods of time. It’s just parenting stuff.
TLDR: I’m extremely grateful for my parents and their unwavering support during the pandemic. We’ve grown closer together as a family and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. However, this experience reinforced my desire to move and forge my own path, away from them or their judgement.
Hope my perspective helps a bit!
If you live in a small country, where everyone is related on average 2.5 degrees away to a random person, it's pretty hard to get a job if you don't have any family connections. After several years I managed to get a warehouse and courier job through a crazy family connection with some boss of a firm. I enrolled in college again in 2010 and then went to work abroad to gain some credibility in my field. The job abroad was paid well, but soul-crushing, so a few months ago I found a job in my field at home for half the salary.
I never played any videogames.
Millennials (at least those who graduated before the 2008 financial crisis) had legitimate aspirations of home ownership, starting a family, and achieving the typical American Dream milestones. Many of them have not given up those dreams, despite numerous setbacks. On the other hand, Generation Z never had those aspirations in the first place. They don't expect to ever own a home. They understand the nuclear family is financially unreachable. Life milestones after university graduation by and large do not exist for Gen Z kids.
The nuclear family was a stupid idea anyway, putting the necessity of income over the necessity of an (extended) family. Children are not supposed to be raised by a single pair of mother and father, that's not how humans have evolved to grow up. Humans have always been raised by the extended family and only in the last two-hundred years we've invented this crazy concept of a 'nuclear family'.
For us, living at home is not failure. Moving out without planning to start a family if you live in the same city as your parents is considered wasting money. You instead use it as an opportunity to save a pile of money and invest.
How much of this is just cultural change? It isn't failure to launch. It is wanting to launch with a larger rocket with more fuel.
Caucasian, US born male here. IMO, Western culture is less suited to many of the challenges of the modern world. I don't want to imply that Asian culture is somehow flawless, but there is quite a bit the west can learn if it wants to be efficient and stable in the near future.
My half-baked thought is that you can look at world population growth over time(https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth) and note that East and SE Asian population density has been higher for much longer than in the west. It stands to reason that either some aspects of culture have adapted to this, or that the population density somewhat results from a conducive cultural factor. Obviously it's much more complicated than that, but I hope I've made my point.
That said, I think there are forces at work which are putting special pressure on young people today. Whether it is related to declining testosterone, cultural shifts against traditional masculinity and success, negative information overload, cheap and ubiquitous entertainment and distractions, economic forces... I don't know. I think it's good to note that living at home isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there does seem to be something more insidious affecting our youth today.
Especially to the economic situation of middle and lower class individuals. For most young people, it is simply __impossible__ to replicate even the family situations their parent generation had with a stay at home wife rearing the children and a breadwinning father -- simply because the real wage stagnation has made it impossible to finance a family without at least two 'good' incomes. Staying in the family home during university perhaps until marriage at age 30, this amounts to 10 years of more efficient spending on rent/mortgage, bills and other shared appliances. Having an extra $100k saved up at age 30 this way can make and break a family project.
Upper middle with >$500k household income at age 30-50 and above likely are in a better economic spot than they have ever been in and not really comparable to the plight of the commons.
All of the necessities are less and less attainable day by day.
House prices are rising out of control.
College education is extremely expensive, and jobs require more and more degrees and credentials.
Dating apps are heavily biased towards women.
But entertainment at home is more attainable than ever! Cheap high speed internet, a plethora of fun games to play, tons of people online to socialize with.
Demeaning them by calling them man-children is not going to help them in the slightest.
I'd argue that doing one thing for the rest of your life is a classic definition of mental illness.
But I agree with the main point: “person wants to live in a way I don't like” is not mental illness.
Defining a metal illness is non trivial, but for starters, their mental state needs to cause them or someone else harm or discomfort. But it's also possible that the discomfort isn't caused by their mental state, but the society they are in who rejects them.
In 1000 years no one will remember what that person in their virtual world did any more than you know what a random person 1000 years ago did, but if they feel every bit as accomplished and emotionally fulfilled, then what's the difference?
Now if their involvement in their virtual world means they are unable to sustain themselves in the physical world (not showing up to work, health problems, etc) then we have a problem that needs addressing. But living in a virtual world, in and of itself, is perfectly valid.
Completely agree calling someone a man-child does not help. We would condemn that kind of language said about woman.
Biggest reason I moved on, I think, was quite simply that my horizons rapidly broadened. So, before passing judgement, I'd want to see what became of these young men in a few years time first.
Games like Pac Man and Tetris are algorithmic workloads. It's not much different than driving a semi or forklift, except you're not paid by a company for the work you do. It puts human brains closer to acting and performing as algorithmic worker bee agents.
Modern AAA titles are the same thing, just with more degrees of freedom.
I understand that there are dopamine triggers, but game engines subject players to the same repetitive thing over and over until the game ends. Kill this thing, collect 12 pelts, etc. There aren't very many variations on this theme, either. I can't grapple with how this squares with the limited time we have in life.
I think the best argument from my perspective is that Animal Crossing has you literally working to pay off a fake mortgage to buy digital items you don't need. You shouldn't stress out over a game.
I've enjoyed games for their mood, setting, music, and narrative, but gameplay itself is work. I'd rather just have a movie or narrative story. I already work too much.
Open world games _are_ the equivalent of movies or narratives. think Skyrim, for example.
Well, I would dispute it is tedium (particularly compared with watching a modern Hollywood production, and particularly watching TV) - I like exploring and finding new and strange areas of the world.
That’s your problem. Repetition, mindlessness, boredom, flow are different facets of the same phenomenon. When your ancestors needed to build a shelter, they spent hours and hours chopping, hewing, digging, etc etc. Birds have nests, bees have hives, beavers have dams; the list goes on and on. It’s perfectly normal to find some amount of busywork soothing.
You hit your cap at work; others don’t. There are also those with real addictions where it inhibits their ability to accomplish other goals, but that’s true of tons of habits that scratch the same itch.
still, some multiplayer games get me absolutely hooked for a while. a well-designed multiplayer game can be a never-ending stream of novel situations. open-ended puzzle games like factorio are always fun (for me) with a couple good friends. for some reason it never feels like work, even though it's fairly close to what I just did from 9-5.
The game being work, but not hard work, provides a number of things beneficial to easy social interaction: a reason to be there, typically an easy way to add value (within the game) and therefore have a reason to approach groups you aren't a member of and potentially join or meet, and an overall good background for chat/conversation without necessarily coming off as desperate or creepy.
Having a casual conversation is fun. Being forced to have casual conversations with people all that long is work. And so on etc.
Snide comments about "kids these days" aside, housing is much more expensive than it used to be, compared to median household earnings.
[Edit] I'm totally guilty of snide comments about "kids these days"; I wasn't directing that at anyone.
I ask this because much of the undertone in the article and in this thread is about the failure of meeting the gender role expectations that are put on young men. Do they have a job and a car? Have they studied hard so they can get a good job in order to support a wife and kid?
Culture in the last several decades have hammered down on the negative aspects of stereotyping. A person who is 35 has gone through a life time of TV, movie and politics that on repeat has talked about the negative of gender roles for women, while the expectations on men has remained fairly unchanged. I do not find it strange at all if an increasing portion of men under this culture has rejected the role put on them.
Which goes back to the original question I started with. What motivates them and what do they want to do with their life? If we want to avoid the slow motion tragedy, maybe the way forward is to help them answer those question in the absent of imposed gender roles.
I don't know why it's different for some people, but it is. I have to think it's something we just don't put emphasis on in our education system or by parents. So pop culture does it for us. When I was a kid everyone wanted to be someone famous; a singer, an athlete, an actor, etc. Today is no different, everyone wants to be an influencer, a streamer, etc.
I think we need to make it a point for kids to understand from a young age that not everyone can be the famous person, neither should everyone want to be. There are so many other options, they only want fame because they don't know anything else.
In case anyone is wondering, I didn't become a Ninja Turtle.
People pick degrees based on the advice of counselors who seem to know of 8 kinds of job, and half of them are not something you can advise a kid in a striving high school to follow (binman, factory worker, etc) .
It's actually nuts how people will do an internship and then decide this is the thing they want to do. Or they get a visit from someone at school and now they're gonna be an author.
If there's one thing we need in society, it's experiential information about jobs.
For instance I've known many people who went into management consulting. None of them think it has any value. If I was a kid I'd want to know that.
Accountants come across many types of business and are employable in many types of firms. The job is closer to a lawyer than many people expect, esp irl to tax. Your math degree is minimally useful.
Recruiters talk to people all day and are paid in proportion to the salary of the placed person.
Anyway those are just jobs that I don't do, and I know a tiny bit about them through contact with real world people.
Kids need these contacts.
I suspect quite a few people are looking at the odds of achieving various goals, and simply changing the goals. Such as owning a home in desirable areas, or having kids if you cannot afford a food school district or a job that allows you to be home for dinner.
Or if you have experienced income instability, and you do not feel comfortable bringing children into the world. I probably would not have if I did not find a spouse with income in the top two quintiles. Not that there’s nothing wrong with the alternative, but different people have different risk tolerances and higher (perceived) volatility can be a cause for change in some population wide changed we are seeing.
Yet poorer developing nations have higher birth rates than developed nations. Is it because they have lower expectations for what their children need to live a "good" life, that they just have more hope that things will work out somehow, or that they somehow don't care about these concerns?
The second order effects get a bit complicated though...
In developing countries, more likely than not. But there's also the factors that make people choose to use condoms when they become available. Condom availability has no effect without the whole marketing/education/social pressure around why people should use condoms.
I didn't say that. Many, many other things affect the reproductive rate. However the availability of contraception (and other tools for family planning) has a significant and obvious impact on the size of those effects.
As in, when people are able to reliably plan children, they have less of them.
US is on its way sideways or down for many of its citizens.
The developing world is on its way up.
Even for those with money, self-imposed targets are so high that having children seems like a distraction. Too much work, not enough time.
You have to reciprocate which is completelt ignored on HN. They do help you with kids and you have to help them with kids, elder care, sick care house fixing amd what not. You also dont get to make that many individualistic decisions either and many people have to accept their decisions made for them.
Yes, I think the minimally acceptable quality of life is certainly relative.
> that they just have more hope that things will work out somehow
Possibly, if everyone around you is on an upward trajectory, I can see that changing people’s calculus.
> or that they somehow don't care about these concerns?
I think a big factor is how (financially) independent women are and what kind of access to birth control (especially IUDs) they have. I suspect many of the women who have or had 3+ children would not have if they had similar options to those in developed countries today.
The adults pay the "fixed costs" to keep the farm running so each additional child produces more in labor than they consume in resources. They're too poor to hire other adults for labor because they have their own "fixed costs" that are much higher than a child in the family.
if I don't provide for my children in America, I enter the legal system.
But very rarely do you see any criticism or even questioning about modern Western women and what men want in a woman. Only what women want. The journalists never seem interested in asking whether modern Western women are marriage material? Degrees don't make you marriage material. Are men still attracted to feminine women, and are there enough feminine women? Are there potential reasons why Western men find it risky to commit to Western women? Do Western women have realistic standards? Do Western women need to be less picky about superficial characteristics? Given that the vast majority breakups are initiated by women, could women in a lot of instances be ending relationships and wrecking their own homes over trivial matters?
The mainstream coverage of this topic is usually very one sided/gynocentric. Women questioning the value of modern men is acceptable, while men questioning the value of modern women will often get you labeled a misogynist/woman hating incel.
This imbalance/lack of discussing what men want in women/lack of criticism of some aspects of modern women really hurts marriage minded women as well, because a lot of women are growing up without hearing what men want in a woman to marry.
This gets said so much on fora with men who regard themselves as “redpilled”, but it makes no sense to me personally. As a bookish and arts-inclined person, so much of my worldview, the things that occupy my thoughts during the day, has been formed by the canon of literature, music, films. No woman would seem dating and marriage material to me if she weren’t similarly erudite and we would have some common ground in that respect. It has been the number-one factor driving all my relationships over my life.
Often the man claiming that men don’t care about a woman’s education, goes on to say that what matters is that the woman knows, for example, how to cook. That, too, has never made sense to me. I live in a country where for the childless, eating out good healthy food is not appreciably more expensive than cooking at home, and a woman who chooses to take advantage of that and use her valuable time for other pursuits, would seem more attractive.
I don't even know what to say to this. Is [picks from list] speech pathologist, dental hygienist, nurse, payroll clerk or hairdresser NOT a job that involves a fair amount of knowledge, training, and skill?
Just because it's not EE or CS doesn't mean there isn't a wealth of technical and scientific understanding (or even just an understanding of the legal environment) going on behind the scenes of a profession.
So you're probably not going to find a girl who has exactly the same job as you and wants to date you -- but if you ask them to explain their profession to you, you might just learn there's a lot going on under the hood.
"they have to settle with women they have little in common with"
Again, this is just a lack of imagination. I studied a bit of chemistry, my wife studied a lot of chemistry, we appreciate that chemistry is cool. Just because I went with computers and she went with medicine doesn't mean we have "little in common"; we just find other topics to geek-out about.
"Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don't." ― Bill Nye
[1] list was https://fourpillarfreedom.com/visualizing-u-s-occupational-e...
that's basically it: debt is not attractive.
If a woman is basically the mirror image of a man (degree, high paying job, spends most of the day at an office), then what exactly is a man buying into with a relationship with said woman? Maybe intimacy, but that feeling will wear off after a few years. A vagina? Well, that's kind of depressing on its own. Expecting men to love and accept women who serve the exact same role they do in life is like wondering why companies aren't run entirely by managers, or entirely by assembly line workers. Men can already make a bunch of money and find intellectual stimulation from other men, and a woman has to compete with that. So what does a woman necessarily provide a man in that case?
Related to that, an intellectual woman probably isn't going to have a lot of time for anything outside of a few hours of eating food, watching Netflix, and maybe sex. That's all fine and good, except there's a kind of relationship that already fulfills those things, and it's called friends with benefits. Why make a contract with the state that gives half your possessions to the opposite party if things go wrong when you can get the benefits without any of that baggage?
No offense, but it can be really astounding how people simply can't understand that the programming they received about college degrees can be wrong. Man spent millions of years mating with women who didn't have a college degree (and vise versa!). A woman with a college degree does little more than what the man already can do with his own college degree.
It's just like the field of software engineering. No one really wants to work with a jerk with credentials. They want someone with good qualities that they can get along with.
Sure one can pay for a child care center, but that's not covering the whole cleaning and doing the chores around the house. Its also only 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
An at-home caregiver (note: I didn't say wife either spouse can do) can provide an immense amount of value.
10 hours a month doesn't cover doing a full time job. What world do you live in where one can do a full-time job for 10 hours a month?
Also, if one's particular interesting in learning extends to longterm travels, immersing oneself in foreign countries to study the languages or aspects of culture there, your male friends are probably not going to accompany you for more than a brief time. When people go on longterm travels, it is their partners that they rely on for companionship. (That holds, of course, for non-intellectual people traveling, too, as anyone in the bikepacking or overlanding scenes can tell you.)
For a bookish person, being in a relationship with a partner who merely has "good qualities", but who doesn't share that basic context, can mean feeling like one is not truly understood and there is a barrier between you. There is nothing worse than being in a relationship yet feeling alone.
I personally think that the more educated people a society has, the more interesting people there are to meet.
While you were in college all the non-dull non-college people were out there having different life experiences than you-- learning things you don't know about.
In many ways education makes us more homogeneous. To an extent this can help make each other seem more interesting because it gives us common language and intellectual frameworks to have discussions, it dispenses with some boring preliminaries. But beyond that point, I think sharing common education makes people actually less interesting, not more.
> Of course there are dull people out there but do you think that most people without college degrees are dull
I meant precisely what I said. I don't intend to make a broad statistical statement based on my limited personal annecdotes.
> While you were in college all the non-dull non-college people were out there having different life experiences than you-- learning things you don't know about.
I don't have a college degree. There are many thing I don't know about, which is why I like talking to educated people.
> In many ways education makes us more homogeneous.
I strongly disagree. ”Education” only creates homogeneity to the degree to which educational institutions focus on indoctrination over education.
I strongly support enouraging education for people of all genders, ethnicities, intelligences and socio-economic backgrounds because I think it will make the world a more interesting (and better) place.
Particularly, that kind of feeling inadequate in spite of success is a likely a form of imposter syndrome. Many other people experience it, including people with degrees (there is always someone else with more or more illustrious degrees). Many people feel better just knowing that other, even obviously super-accomplished people, have felt that way and many people seem to more or less age out of it.
While I can't refute the existence of that social stigma, at least I found that there isn't much of that in actuality... but that doesn't prevent it from existing in your head. Of course, there are people who always find something to be snooty about. If it's not the pedigree of your academic credentials it'll be about the brand of your sneakers. Surrounding yourself with thoughtful and emotionally healthy people can help.
At least that is what I experienced and heard from others.
Cheers
Jack Donovan has a great corollary to this in "The Way Of Men" where he says that society is nowadays trying to "fix" men as if they are "imperfect women."
I chuckled a little at your comment because you are sort of the anti Henry Higgins, the character who sings "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" in the famous play set in 1917
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Doz5w2W-jAY
I started copying and pasting lines and responding to them but on edit it seems pointless.
I would just say that good relationships work in both directions, 1+1=3 idiom, and come in vastly many forms.
Intimacy doesn't fade in a good relationship it grows stronger.
For sure the type of women you seem to be looking for exist and enjoy that type of relationship.
But a lot of people, of all genders and orientations, find the things you don't seem to think are good qualities, are in fact the things 'that they can get along with.'
And I would maybe suggest instead looking more at the 'programming' of gender and roles.
Women aren't simply a transaction or variable in your equation of an ideal relationship.
> what exactly is a man buying into with a relationship with said woman?
What a strange and confused perspective, to pose such a question.
I have to be perfectly honest, but to me, this is entrepreneurialism, not intellectualism. Someone might go to college and get some massive degrees to become i.e a lawyer or a senior dev, or a doctor, but ... those are trade skills. There's a fair amount of overlap, but to me, intellectualism is something distinct.
For many of us, intellectualism is the "philo" part of "philosophy"; the love of knowledge. Not knowledge as a means to an end; as a means to a high-powered, eat-your whole-day career. But rather; knowledge for its own sake - knowledge that exists as a sort of purpose for life (whether secular or spiritual, it's practically the pursuit of curiosity and knowledge-seeking as a sort of borderline religious calling).
Guys like that are looking for a woman (or man, if they're so inclined) they can have fulfilling conversations with, every day, for the rest of their life. And it's not something you can do with your "pals"; there are some of these conversations you can only have with a soul mate. Hell, there are some of them you can only have with your lover - not a friend-with-benefits (which, sadly, includes a lot of spouses), but someone you've been willing to be truly vulnerable with and expose the depths of your soul to.
But yeah; for a lot of us, they have to have the same deep love of knowledge, curiosity, and sense of wonder about life - or there can't be love, there.
They were as physically attractive as they were emotionally shallow. There is much much more to a person than an education.
It's not that the PhD doesn't add to the attractiveness. It's just not the most important variable for most men. You might differ, but unusually intellectually curious men on HN aren't really representative. Most people have very little intellectual curiosity.
For a life partner i would and did pick the PhD tho
I also seriously doubt that the claims about women not living up to some standard of attractiveness or femininity are true, misogynistic or not.
But isn't that the parent poster's point? They don't make decisions that make them more attractive for marriage, therefore they're less likely to end up married.
The same argument applies to men too. Men don't have to do things that make them more attractive to women, but they shouldn't be all that surprised when they end up not being attractive to women.
The men unable to get a date at all clearly have some work to do - even when there's so many unhappy women, there is something they're still doing or not doing that makes them even less appealing.
The unhappy women and the men they're currently dating are a more curious situation. Are the men unsatisfied with them in particular, and so these women have work to do to convince a man they're "marriage material"? Or are the men simply not looking for anything that serious at all?
The general position of the media coverage is that it's the latter: the women can't "make themselves good enough for marriage" because the men just want the casual merry-go-round to continue. And there are certainly men quoted in articles about this who feel exactly that, but I can't say for certain that we're missing another group who just finds these women lacking.
My personal view is that we've shifted a bit, so the "growing up" that would've normally happened for these men in their early 20s is now ten years behind or so, but I see it happening in my cohort now as everyone is in their mid-30s. So I'm not too concerned for that side of things.
The idea that only some small fraction of men get any dates at all flies in the face of everything I've seen. Is there any solid demographic data suppporting this idea that only 1 in 4, or 1 in 10, or whatever, men is actively dating or in a relationship? Not message data from a dating app, because there's a LONG process between "sent a message on a dating app" and "in a relationship" but actual data on relationships. In the world as its being described here, you'd have a huge perpetually-single population...
I believe the actual "can't find a date to save my life" crowd is much smaller and less representative than it thinks it is. The internet is very perspective-distorting here. These are all surface-level-plausible claims that don't seem to hold up to any real scrutiny.
And ultimately women have to settle, as you say the math doesn't work out and in the end they want a relationship. But that doesn't help the young men who aren't old enough to be in the strike zone of more mature women. And since the women felt they settled when they went with this man of course it is they who initiate divorce and end the relationship since they always felt that they could do better.
"Live, try things out, settle down when you're ready to" sounds fine to me, since again, these groups of unhappy women and undateable men tend to be loud but I see no evidence that they're demographically dominant percentages. Way too many ... not-the-most-attractive... dudes out there getting married for the math to add up...
Why are you making this about sides? I don't have a low opinion of either side, I'm just making observations. Stop looking for a fight.
Such as? What are some examples of these other sentient species that have disappeared into a virtual reality of their own design?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/29/share-ame...
We are not doing that. There is a lot of discussion about men who cant find partners. The common assumption in those is that women are never single if they dont want it. There is occasional pearl clutching about women who dont seek stable long term partner.
On HN, there is basically no discussion about what women think or want. And where such discussion is, what women say is ignored and instead male guesses are taken as gospel - even if man making those guesses interacts exclusively with males and dont know any woman close enough for her to tell him what she thinks.
The common male complaint I see isn't "all these women I date are simply not going to fulfill what I need," it's "no women will date me at all" which points at a breakdown in the process way before the point of "what are these men looking for." Hard to imagine these men even have any idea of what they're actually looking for in a relationship, with that lack of experience. You only find out one way...
And for that situation, a woman complaining "so few of these men I see have their shit together" and a man complaining "so few of these women are willing to date me at all" are two sides of the same coin. I think at a societal level, though, you'd be hard pressed to push the view "everyone should simply give up on contributing to society in traditional ways" so the coverage is going to look negatively at the "freeloaders" in the same way it disapproved of someone like Paris Hilton. You see it through a lens of sexism, I see it through a lens of it being hard to sympathize with someone drifting through life chatting meaninglessly on the internet and playing games. BATNA comes into play, too - the person with no options at all seems to be the one with the incentive to make changes. (While for the women here, and the men they are currently dating while ignoring these stay-at-home-and-do-nothing men, there's other, plenty-well-trod advice about compromise being necessary, etc, that's been repeated to death in media of all sorts.)
Maybe we should encourage these men to go become nannies for a few years, to both give them a job and boost their dating profile that way AND to prepare them for being a full-time homemaker if traditional employment simply isn't what they want! I certainly think that should be an option for both genders.
> Given that the vast majority breakups are initiated by women
Citation please? I would LOVE to know if your number here also includes stuff like "he slept with me and then ghosted me," too.
I suspect what the poster meant to write was that most divorces are initiated by women. Which is a different statistic but still somewhat relevant. It's actually true, it's around 69% that are initiated by women. Here's the study i quickly found for it which seems credible https://www.asanet.org/press-center/press-releases/women-mor...
Interestingly it explicitly states that there's no large difference for non-marital relationships. So the poster is incorrect about breakups in general.
Speaking anecdotally from my own experience, there is a pervasive fear of marriage and raising children amongst men. Most believe that if you get divorced you'll be left destroyed financially and denied access to your children regardless of the circumstances and that getting divorced is extremely likely. Whether that's actually true or not, I don't actually know, but it's still widely believed and influencing men's behavior/plans all the same. I suspect that's a big factor in the frequency of men who don't seem to care about having their shit together. From my own observation of divorces within my extended family and those of my close friends, it does seem to be true to me. Many divorces I've been privy to, seem to almost always end with the man living a much lower standard of living by himself with restricted access to children, while the mother lives in the family home with a higher standard of living that the ex-husband pays for. Totally anecdotal of course, but it certainly makes me extremely cautious when considering marriage and it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of young men don't even consider it.
On average I think it's probably not true. Most men probably stay married, and most divorces probably aren't ruinous. I say "most", but I don't mean a comfortable majority. The ruinous divorces happen a lot. I've seen it destroy more men I know/knew than alcohol or any drug. Even if it only happens one in six times, that's Russian Roulette odds. Those are bad odds.
Where men ask for custody, they tend to get it. But they are less likely to ask.
Also, alimony for adult women are more of rare. Where they exist they are time limited and awarded only if she stayed at home for multiple years. As in, in double income situation they wont happen.
Alternative talk shows like Kevin Samuels are gaining traction.
The queen is naked.
The audience here is (wrongly) responding to you by thinking that you're somehow targeting women in your questioning, but I get what you're trying to say - you see a strange imbalance of personalities being portrayed in popular media and it's setting off alarms in your head, like someone is trying to sell you something or they're trying to push an agenda on you that you don't quite buy into. They are, but you're resisting. Keep doing this. Eventually, find out who the owners are of all these channels and products that are being pushed on you. What do they have in common, and what would they stand to gain from this. Follow the money.
Hey, there's actually a study [1] about this!
> The author uses a new longitudinal study of relationships in the US, the How Couples Meet and Stay Together surveys, to examine the gender of who wanted the breakup for both marital and nonmarital heterosexual relationships for the first time. The results show that only in marriages are the majority of breakups wanted by the female partner. Men and women in nonmarital heterosexual relationships in the US are equally likely to want to break up. Furthermore, wives report lower relationship quality than husbands, while men and women in nonmarital relationships report more similar relationship quality.
[1] https://web.stanford.edu/~mrosenfe/Rosenfeld_gender_of_break...
Incidentally, the courts generally don't get involved in the later sort of breakup. If a for-profit industry were made for nonmarital breakups as divorce attorneys have made for marital breakups, I bet this discrepancy would narrow.
The displacement of men from the labor markets has created a lack of stable patrimonial family formation, which is consistent with the Marxian doctrine’s intellectually revolutionary advocacy and its propagation into the American educational institutions over the last century in time. See the top cited references in the last century in the Western World for corroboration.
[For those unaware, Marx was violently opposed to family creation as necessarily female enslavement (see the second chapter of the Communist Manifesto).]
Patrimony has natural merit for creating principled savings and investments demonstrative in civilized record. Yet most American children are educated by the Nanny State and lack the proper tools to learn how to survive and thrive at being human - a universally patrilineal hereditary trait known as culture.
This form of culture is distinct from one which is unnaturally formed, such as by profit-motivations or ultimately temporal, metabolic functions rather than spiritual contemplation. This is seen consistent with decline in the American population’s affirmation of a transcendental existence conferred by the rise of an Atheistic population. What quantity of atheists were raised not simply with a spiritual life, but a natural one, existing outside of the metabolic motivations of federally legislated education? How does this correspond with the growth of Marxian publications in Academia compared to British Enlightenment literature including the great works of the Occident, such as Aristotle? We ought to be able to compare catalogs over time of the shift and denial of Western Patrimony as good. And I believe the shift exists, demonstrating a disintegrated sexually dimorphic society with transsexual cultural phenomenon as manufactured. Viz, unnaturally formed and therefore biologically morbid. See the overweight phenomenon as further evidence of the morbid nature of the civil authorities.
Do you have a solution to this? (I've been thinking about it for a while and I don't know)
We can also draw inspiration from the cultural change that we have seen for women. How often do you see in movie a person say to a woman "Are you happy? Is this really what you want...". Lifting personal motivation as an actually question is a early good step towards making people think about it.
There seems to also be a possible error in how people perceive the problem. In the absent of video games you would not suddenly get motivation. Even if you would throw them out on the street with no money, food or shelter, the result would not be a sudden aspiration to become what society expect men to be.
Finding what motivate oneself can either be done through the help by others, or alone. It not as much of a question about what is easier as all hobbies are more work than no hobby at all.
Could modern families (with step fathers, or without any father) contributed to men failing to become independant?
What saved me was that I had a big interest on computers and learned at the time to do basic stuff like toying around with php (when it used to be big) and html.
One day on going through the neighborhood park I met a guy who told me he was a software developer and his company was looking for inexperienced people in exchange for the minimum wage and so my story as a developer (although I'm a very SUBPAR one) started
I can’t think of a single group which aims to highlight men, uplift men, and encourage masculine behavior.
These guys grew up in a school system of almost entirely women teachers, and popular media tells them that if they are successful in any way, it is due to oppression.
It’s no wonder why they’re not succeeding. We spent the last 15 years telling them that their success is evil. Who are their role models supposed to be exactly?
Implies there's something wrong with the way women teach.
If you meant to say, "young men don't have strong positive male role models", something most people would agree with, then you should have said that.
No, you are uncharitably reading that into the statement.
That's bullshit. In American government, women make up roughly 30% of leadership positions. At work, unless you're a waiter, nurse, primary/secondary school teacher, or in HR, you're surrounded by men, and you only see more and more men the higher up you go.
> That is not normal historically.
That's asinine bullshit. Historical norms are not a model for current norms. A lot of people have plumbing, electricity, and representative government now, which is not normal historically. What I'm saying is, your appeal to historical norms is arbitrary and thoroughly shit.
Y'all are making women out to be devils and they're not. There's a college word for that (I had to look it up) it's called "misogyny". Ain't nothing wrong with women, or having women teachers, or women legislators, or women doctors and lawyers. Jfc, I literally can't believe I have to spell all this out in 2021.
>When it comes to teachers' marking, the study says there is a consistent pattern of girls' work being "marked up".
>Teachers are said to reward "organisational skills, good behaviour and compliance" rather than objectively marking pupils' work.
https://www.bbc.com/news/education-31751672
Furthermore, it is notoriously difficult to get to causation from correlation. If you'd like to read more about this, check out Judea Pearl's work.
A few weeks ago I was speaking about my impression that my company is forcing women into promotions and positions just for the sake of reaching targets. I said that it felt unfair towards male colleagues.
Her reply was something like this: Men had the advantage for thousands of years, now it is OK if they suffer and that women receive the advantage. This will balance it out.
I disagreed because the peers that those girls are competing against were not part of the "bad white old man" system. She disagreed and said that some "eye for eye is necassary".
The result was that they were all tough as nails and ran a rig as well as any man. There was literally no difference between them and their male counterparts. As others have observed, capability is uniformly distributed, opportunity is not.
What desireable women ;)
> with _litterally_ no difference to their male ... counterpart.
Counterpart... grrr
> As others have observed
I also use that, to increase credibility, but usually only in very small group settings.
> Capability is uniformly distributed
Between man and women... wow: No it's not!
Are you of Jewish decent? - Sometimes I have this "out of this[my] world encounters" ... someone just trying to play others and then I think: What was that? How could she/he be like that?
> Opportunity is not
Yeah, at Halliburton it's not.
Good that companies that thrive (Halliburton during the shale boom) can do anything they like (hire women) and still thrive...
... maybe a bit less, but who cares?
* Joe Rogan is the highest paid podcaster of all time, and has 190 million downloads a month
* Ben Shapiro has the number 6 most-listened to podcast in the US
* Fox News is the highest rated news program in the US
To your point that most women teachers are women: That's true because women are often channeled into careers that are lower paid and lower status. This is even true within careers. For example, women are 50% of assistant professors, but only 34% of full time professors.
So who could young men look up to as role models? Well, the obvious answer would be anyone who is successful and doing good in the world, regardless of gender. But even if they are only capable of having male role models, they could look up to the 66% of full professors who are men; the 100% of US presidents who are men; the professional athletes who are most celebrated, which is overwhelmingly men -- all 10 of the top 10 best paid athletes are men.
It's easy for people who feel like losers to blame the "other." It's very easy for men who feel like losers to blame all their problems on women. But by any objective standard, there are plenty of individuals and groups that support and promote men. Whatever the underlying cause is for this phenomenon, it's unlikely to be women.
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/12/10/new-ana....
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brettknight/2021/05/12/the-worl...
These concepts of masculinity our culture pines for are destructive and unproductive. A woman is no less qualified to raise a man than a man.
No one has told them their success is evil. You're conflating women being told their success is success with men being shunned. There's a perception that women and minority groups have somehow gained an advantage in the last 30 years. What they've gained is some measure of equality with white males who still earn more, are more likely to get jobs and aren't stigmatized for their existence. If you believe white males are stigmatized for their existence, consider the stereotypes, lack of representation, and abuse women and minority groups face on a daily basis.
If a man can only find a role model in a man with x testosterone level, we are in dire shape as a society.
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Forgive typos, I'm on my phone.
It's not that women aren't qualified, it's that children need father figures as much as they need mother figures:
>72% of juvenile murderers, and 60% of rapists came from single mother homes. Chuck Colson, “How Shall We Live?” Tyndale House , 2004, p.323
>“The strongest predictor of whether a person will end up in prison, is that they were raised by a single parent”. C.C. Harper and S.S. McLanahan, “Father Absence and Youth Incarceration”, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Assoc., San Francisco, CA, 1998
>“After controlling for single motherhood, the difference between black and white crime rates disappeared.” Progressive Policy Institute, 1990, quoted by David Blankenhorn, “Fatherless America: Confronting Our Most Urgent Social Problem,” New York, Harper Perennial, 1996, p.31
Way more stats here: https://www.fixfamilycourts.com/single-mother-home-statistic...
Poverty is a more convincing factor in the way people raised by single parents turn out than that they didn't have a father figure (traditionally the financial provider btw).
My god, you're exactly right.
These aren’t men who are working, but saving money living at home. They’re not participating in the labor force at all.