5 ms·

Modern life is just bizarre, and especially so for men. We used to perform tasks that were immensely valued by women. Our rewards were directly dependent on our

Modern life is just bizarre, and especially so for men. We used to perform tasks that were immensely valued by women. Our rewards were directly dependent on our abilities. We worked hard and we achieved goals. Modern life is none of those things for most men. There is very little difference between the pay in many jobs, whether they are typically performed by men or women. These jobs often don't reward you for your abilities but rather reward you for who you know or how good your are at politics. Most jobs are also boring. With the money obtained, whether you are male or female, you can go and buy your meat at the supermarket and pay someone to build your house and so on. Men seem to have been replaced by a master-slave relationship with masses of people working for a small group of large companies that provide for both men and women. It is like large businesses are the new man. I feel like they are a middle-man that simply should be replaced. I tend to agree with the unabomber in that modern life simply isn't compatible with humans.

empath75 10y ago
When you say sentences like the last one, you might want to consider getting psychological help. There are all kinds of critics of modern life one could reference that aren't mass murderers.
- tomp 10y ago
  Why the ad hominem? Just because he was a terrorist doesn't mean that all his opinions were invalid.
  - empath75 10y ago
    The only reason anyone knows what he thought is that he murdered people until he forced the media to publish his depraved opinions. He wasn't an original thinker. There are plenty of people who wrote critiques of modern life that didn't have to murder people to get attention for them.
    - Sandwich388 10y ago
      You're not writing any concrete argument. You have to use intellectual concepts to fight another intellectual concept. Adhominem isn't helping at all here.
- kentrado 10y ago
  That's an ad hominem. Just because he is a murderer, it does not invalidate everything that he ever said. We should do well to recognize criminals as fellow human beings, instead of mindlessly reject everything about them, just so that we can follow the predictable and tiresome ritual of shunning the deviant so we ourselves can be perceived as good.
- Fifer82 10y ago
  You might be surprised at what this says about yourself.
- iiii_iivii_iiii 10y ago
  The unabomber wasn't a mass murderer.
- dang 10y ago
  It was arguably a tasteless bit of trolling, but you made the thread even worse with a personal swipe. Please don't do that on HN.
watwut 10y ago
The article is about lack of factory jobs. Those were literally mass of people working for few. Then wife went to supermarket to buy meat.
toyg 10y ago
Utopia never existed. Until about 250 years ago, your outcomes depended overwhelmingly on what family you came from, no matter your skills. Children of peasants would become peasants; children of artisans would become artisans; and so on and so forth. Rebelling to that state of thing would likely get you hanged or ostracized. The industrial revolution and global colonization changed that, injecting opportunities for an ever-growing section of men; and genocidal mass-war eventually did the same for women. This land of mirth and honey where every man has an opportunity to bootstrap himself is a somewhat fantastical invention. Social mobility might have been higher than average in the US between 1850 and 1950, but anywhere else "where you come from" was always the most important factor in anyone's fortunes.
- watwut 10y ago
  Moreover, men were happy to support and fight those genocidal wars in part because lives for many of them were shitty.
  - c06n 10y ago
    Your blanket statement is bullshit. Maybe you should read a book from the era, men were terrified of the horrors these wars produced. Perhaps they saw a chance to escape their absolute poverty, that doesn't mean they liked what they did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplicius_Simplicissimus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplicius_Simplicissimus
    - watwut 10y ago
      Yes many men were opposed and many of them even severely punished for that opposition. The point however still stand - both wars and political parties who brought them in had a lot of support. Not just from women. Those revolutions and wars did not just randomly happened out of nothing. People, not just women, wanted them. Also, many German veterans from wwi wanted the war, wanted to reverse humiliation they felt after loosing. Some were opposed, but opposition was not universal among them. It wasn't just escape from powerty, it was something meant to give their lives meaning, building imperium and all that crap.
flexie 10y ago
Cheer up. Contrary to what many believe, men's chances in life have never been better than now. Life used to be rough and unfair for most us men. Maybe the oldest son had a chance to inherit the farm or shop of his father so he could provide for a wife and family. Many men, however, had no such luck and went through life without marrying, many without ever dating or being with a woman. Western women don't need men to provide an income to the same extent as before, and that opens up a lot of other possibilities for us men. Guys can actually get married although they only earn enough to support half a family or 40% of a family. I even know several guys that makes less than 10% of the family income (and that's through welfare). What chance would a stay home dad have had in 1920? What chance would an unemployed guy have had? And equally important, we can date women without providing them anything else than a bit of romance. It has still only been a couple of generations in which a majority of us dated for years without having to marry. Some women still look at earning ability but many women also look at other traits nowadays. Looks, intellect, humour, family skills, interests etc. Work on that and be grateful you weren't born at any point in human history before the 1950s.
- belorn 10y ago
  While there exist women that don't look at earning ability of men, and there exist men who don't look at the age and appearance of women, both of those seems to be depressingly small minority when ever I see studies on it. I recall a poll from example china where 80% of women answered that they could never date a man who earned less than a set amount (which is above average pay), and a majority who considered that a man should not even be allowed outside if they didn't earn that much. They should be inside studying or working. Why is post-1950 men better off in this regard than pre-1950?
  - andai 10y ago
    Source? I would like to verify these depressing findings.
    - belorn 10y ago
      When it come to vague recollections, source is not that easy to bring. I don't write down what I see, so sometimes you got to take it for what it is. Through after some searching, I did find today what I looked at several years ago and they seems very similar to what I recalled. "The survey shows that about 80% of the single women interviewed think that it's reasonable for men to only consider a relationship if they receive a monthly income of above 4,000 yuan (US$635)", which was above the average income in 2011 when the study was done. - (http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/136873-1.htm http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/136873-1...) For the even more depressing parts, okcupid blog from 2009 shared some data. For how men view of women: (https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0f1561e#.49oxh5d0s https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0...). To quote: "This graph also dramatically illustrates just how much more important a woman’s looks are than a guy’s." For how women view of men: (https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-big-lies-people-tell-in-online-dating-a9e3990d6ae2#.i789kfbzy https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-big-lies-people-tell-in-onli...). To quote: "if you’re a young guy and don’t make much money, cool. If you’re 23 or older and don’t make much money, go die in a fire."
golergka 10y ago
I respect your sentiment, but your comment is bullshit. There are plenty of interesting jobs with different pay that depends on your ability - if anyone, a HN user should be well-aware of that. And while all negative things you mention exist to some extent, they're at their lowest in human history, not the either way around. I feel that you rely more on interpretations of personal experience instead of objective look at the world.
Sandwich388 10y ago
The inner feeling you have is totally right. There is a profound malaise in modern society for men. You should read the books of French writer Michel Houellebecq as he's precisely describing it. Modern men lack a purpose in their life. No transcendency anymore, no family models, no sense of common good, people become atomized individuals, and we're not supposed to live like that. The problem runs very deep even though people start to realize it.
wingless 10y ago
The solution is actually quite simple. Being able to choose your child's sex. If women have happier and easier lives, parents will prefer having daughters which will in turn increase the female population and decrease their value, bringing the value of sexes to an equilibrium.
- mirimir 10y ago
  That's very clever! The men will for sure be happier.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    Also sort of explains the recent rise in gender dysphoria and why male to female is much more common than the other way around.
    - mirimir 10y ago
      I've always preferred ambiguity ;)
- cousin_it 10y ago
  Wow! I never thought of it that way, but it makes sense. Though if unhappy men are mostly invisible to society, that might lead to parents choosing boys under a wrong impression.
AFrogInCanada 10y ago
Eric Zemmour, a French political writer and polemist (he has controversial views on immigration and such, but is right on other topics), speaks about this in great detail in his book "The First Sex" (a reference to Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex") He explains how capitalism has taken the "useful idiots" of feminism and used them to first turn women into workers (hence doubling the amount of consumers as it created a population with a newfound salary) and then feminised men to turn them into passive materialists. Men are no longer the authority, they are less and less the breadwinner, they are encouraged to be more feminine, to be more passive than aggressive, to be sensitive and open with their feelings, all emasculating them even further. Then he cites studies of the sharp rise of men who have trouble getting an erection, of the sharp rise in divorces and people no longer wanting to have a family of their own. He connects, in a somewhat Marxian manner (without the communist solution that Marx proposes) that unbridled capitalism destroys the nuclear family under the false kings of individualism and liberty. If you're interested in this stuff, Freud also talks about this: he claims Civilisation should channel men's aggressive tendencies, not suppress them (as we are doing now). The result in doing the latter will mean men will find other ways to rebel, and it will be against civilization instead of being used to enhance it.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  It seems to me that communism would make that problem worse, not better. If the state is the breadwinner in your family, why do you need men at all?
  - AFrogInCanada 10y ago
    Of course, he is not advocating for communism. The big "enemy" he is denouncing is rather _unbridled_ capitalism, and with that, the erasure of borders, the liberal, globalist economy (and political movements that follow), the sovereignty of countries being traded away to transnational entities, etc. As general as I could put it, he exposes feminism for making women the "reserve army" of capitalism against the worker strikes in the 1970s, which resulted in the diminution of salaries and thus prevented families from being able to support themselves on only the man's salary. He highlights that power has been moving from political leaders to business leaders (see: election of Donald Trump) who have been bending countries to their will, forcing those countries to no longer make decisions to best serve their countries but instead to best attract businesses (which bring jobs, development, education, etc etc). He is advocating for a return to the nation state which he believes is being dismantled, conservative and self-sustaining economies within countries with protectionist/nativist regulations. Whilst his solutions can be questioned, his diagnostic is still rather accurate, in my opinion. That book has a lot of his opinions on the disappearance of the men's virility, but the parts in which he explains the causes and consequences of that are fascinating.

empath75 10y ago

When you say sentences like the last one, you might want to consider getting psychological help. There are all kinds of critics of modern life one could reference that aren't mass murderers.

tomp 10y ago
Why the ad hominem? Just because he was a terrorist doesn't mean that all his opinions were invalid.
- empath75 10y ago
  The only reason anyone knows what he thought is that he murdered people until he forced the media to publish his depraved opinions. He wasn't an original thinker. There are plenty of people who wrote critiques of modern life that didn't have to murder people to get attention for them.
  - Sandwich388 10y ago
    You're not writing any concrete argument. You have to use intellectual concepts to fight another intellectual concept. Adhominem isn't helping at all here.
kentrado 10y ago
That's an ad hominem. Just because he is a murderer, it does not invalidate everything that he ever said. We should do well to recognize criminals as fellow human beings, instead of mindlessly reject everything about them, just so that we can follow the predictable and tiresome ritual of shunning the deviant so we ourselves can be perceived as good.
Fifer82 10y ago
You might be surprised at what this says about yourself.
iiii_iivii_iiii 10y ago
The unabomber wasn't a mass murderer.
dang 10y ago
It was arguably a tasteless bit of trolling, but you made the thread even worse with a personal swipe. Please don't do that on HN.

watwut 10y ago

The article is about lack of factory jobs. Those were literally mass of people working for few. Then wife went to supermarket to buy meat.

toyg 10y ago

Utopia never existed. Until about 250 years ago, your outcomes depended overwhelmingly on what family you came from, no matter your skills. Children of peasants would become peasants; children of artisans would become artisans; and so on and so forth. Rebelling to that state of thing would likely get you hanged or ostracized. The industrial revolution and global colonization changed that, injecting opportunities for an ever-growing section of men; and genocidal mass-war eventually did the same for women. This land of mirth and honey where every man has an opportunity to bootstrap himself is a somewhat fantastical invention. Social mobility might have been higher than average in the US between 1850 and 1950, but anywhere else "where you come from" was always the most important factor in anyone's fortunes.

watwut 10y ago
Moreover, men were happy to support and fight those genocidal wars in part because lives for many of them were shitty.
- c06n 10y ago
  Your blanket statement is bullshit. Maybe you should read a book from the era, men were terrified of the horrors these wars produced. Perhaps they saw a chance to escape their absolute poverty, that doesn't mean they liked what they did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplicius_Simplicissimus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplicius_Simplicissimus
  - watwut 10y ago
    Yes many men were opposed and many of them even severely punished for that opposition. The point however still stand - both wars and political parties who brought them in had a lot of support. Not just from women. Those revolutions and wars did not just randomly happened out of nothing. People, not just women, wanted them. Also, many German veterans from wwi wanted the war, wanted to reverse humiliation they felt after loosing. Some were opposed, but opposition was not universal among them. It wasn't just escape from powerty, it was something meant to give their lives meaning, building imperium and all that crap.

flexie 10y ago

Cheer up. Contrary to what many believe, men's chances in life have never been better than now. Life used to be rough and unfair for most us men. Maybe the oldest son had a chance to inherit the farm or shop of his father so he could provide for a wife and family. Many men, however, had no such luck and went through life without marrying, many without ever dating or being with a woman. Western women don't need men to provide an income to the same extent as before, and that opens up a lot of other possibilities for us men. Guys can actually get married although they only earn enough to support half a family or 40% of a family. I even know several guys that makes less than 10% of the family income (and that's through welfare). What chance would a stay home dad have had in 1920? What chance would an unemployed guy have had? And equally important, we can date women without providing them anything else than a bit of romance. It has still only been a couple of generations in which a majority of us dated for years without having to marry. Some women still look at earning ability but many women also look at other traits nowadays. Looks, intellect, humour, family skills, interests etc. Work on that and be grateful you weren't born at any point in human history before the 1950s.

belorn 10y ago
While there exist women that don't look at earning ability of men, and there exist men who don't look at the age and appearance of women, both of those seems to be depressingly small minority when ever I see studies on it. I recall a poll from example china where 80% of women answered that they could never date a man who earned less than a set amount (which is above average pay), and a majority who considered that a man should not even be allowed outside if they didn't earn that much. They should be inside studying or working. Why is post-1950 men better off in this regard than pre-1950?
- andai 10y ago
  Source? I would like to verify these depressing findings.
  - belorn 10y ago
    When it come to vague recollections, source is not that easy to bring. I don't write down what I see, so sometimes you got to take it for what it is. Through after some searching, I did find today what I looked at several years ago and they seems very similar to what I recalled. "The survey shows that about 80% of the single women interviewed think that it's reasonable for men to only consider a relationship if they receive a monthly income of above 4,000 yuan (US$635)", which was above the average income in 2011 when the study was done. - (http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/136873-1.htm http://www.womenofchina.cn/html/womenofchina/report/136873-1...) For the even more depressing parts, okcupid blog from 2009 shared some data. For how men view of women: (https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0f1561e#.49oxh5d0s https://theblog.okcupid.com/your-looks-and-your-inbox-8715c0...). To quote: "This graph also dramatically illustrates just how much more important a woman’s looks are than a guy’s." For how women view of men: (https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-big-lies-people-tell-in-online-dating-a9e3990d6ae2#.i789kfbzy https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-big-lies-people-tell-in-onli...). To quote: "if you’re a young guy and don’t make much money, cool. If you’re 23 or older and don’t make much money, go die in a fire."

golergka 10y ago

I respect your sentiment, but your comment is bullshit. There are plenty of interesting jobs with different pay that depends on your ability - if anyone, a HN user should be well-aware of that. And while all negative things you mention exist to some extent, they're at their lowest in human history, not the either way around. I feel that you rely more on interpretations of personal experience instead of objective look at the world.

Sandwich388 10y ago

The inner feeling you have is totally right. There is a profound malaise in modern society for men. You should read the books of French writer Michel Houellebecq as he's precisely describing it. Modern men lack a purpose in their life. No transcendency anymore, no family models, no sense of common good, people become atomized individuals, and we're not supposed to live like that. The problem runs very deep even though people start to realize it.

wingless 10y ago

The solution is actually quite simple. Being able to choose your child's sex. If women have happier and easier lives, parents will prefer having daughters which will in turn increase the female population and decrease their value, bringing the value of sexes to an equilibrium.

mirimir 10y ago
That's very clever! The men will for sure be happier.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  Also sort of explains the recent rise in gender dysphoria and why male to female is much more common than the other way around.
  - mirimir 10y ago
    I've always preferred ambiguity ;)
cousin_it 10y ago
Wow! I never thought of it that way, but it makes sense. Though if unhappy men are mostly invisible to society, that might lead to parents choosing boys under a wrong impression.

AFrogInCanada 10y ago

Eric Zemmour, a French political writer and polemist (he has controversial views on immigration and such, but is right on other topics), speaks about this in great detail in his book "The First Sex" (a reference to Simone de Beauvoir's "The Second Sex") He explains how capitalism has taken the "useful idiots" of feminism and used them to first turn women into workers (hence doubling the amount of consumers as it created a population with a newfound salary) and then feminised men to turn them into passive materialists. Men are no longer the authority, they are less and less the breadwinner, they are encouraged to be more feminine, to be more passive than aggressive, to be sensitive and open with their feelings, all emasculating them even further. Then he cites studies of the sharp rise of men who have trouble getting an erection, of the sharp rise in divorces and people no longer wanting to have a family of their own. He connects, in a somewhat Marxian manner (without the communist solution that Marx proposes) that unbridled capitalism destroys the nuclear family under the false kings of individualism and liberty. If you're interested in this stuff, Freud also talks about this: he claims Civilisation should channel men's aggressive tendencies, not suppress them (as we are doing now). The result in doing the latter will mean men will find other ways to rebel, and it will be against civilization instead of being used to enhance it.

cmdrfred 10y ago
It seems to me that communism would make that problem worse, not better. If the state is the breadwinner in your family, why do you need men at all?
- AFrogInCanada 10y ago
  Of course, he is not advocating for communism. The big "enemy" he is denouncing is rather _unbridled_ capitalism, and with that, the erasure of borders, the liberal, globalist economy (and political movements that follow), the sovereignty of countries being traded away to transnational entities, etc. As general as I could put it, he exposes feminism for making women the "reserve army" of capitalism against the worker strikes in the 1970s, which resulted in the diminution of salaries and thus prevented families from being able to support themselves on only the man's salary. He highlights that power has been moving from political leaders to business leaders (see: election of Donald Trump) who have been bending countries to their will, forcing those countries to no longer make decisions to best serve their countries but instead to best attract businesses (which bring jobs, development, education, etc etc). He is advocating for a return to the nation state which he believes is being dismantled, conservative and self-sustaining economies within countries with protectionist/nativist regulations. Whilst his solutions can be questioned, his diagnostic is still rather accurate, in my opinion. That book has a lot of his opinions on the disappearance of the men's virility, but the parts in which he explains the causes and consequences of that are fascinating.