5 ms·

Young men are dropping out of the job market to spend their time gaming

35 points by WheelsAtLarge 10y ago

Safety1stClyde 10y ago
The link sent me to an article about umami, "the fifth taste", not related to games or men. The main protagonist is a woman called Bonnie Chung who likes a Japanese food called miso.
RockofStrength 10y ago
Brave New World
k__ 10y ago
Can't blame them. Coding is a game for me too and its fun. If I had a less fun job, I'd probably play more games.
venomsnake 10y ago
Had pretty bad case of wow addiction. One day I just didn't have the desire to log in. But 3 years went down the drain. Now it is easy to get addicted to a game, but usually lose interest in a couple of days.
EJTH 10y ago
In many places of the world you get to work your ass off for decades while you see 1/3 of the population sitting on their hands while living of the back of the tax paying worker. I can understand that many get fed up, especially if they didn't get paid a whole lot to begin with.
- charlesdm 10y ago
  To each its own? People are free to live the life they want to live. No one is forcing you to work hard.
  - wiradikusuma 10y ago
    and then expect good life? shouldn't it like "you reap what you sow"?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - onion2k 10y ago
      If the expectation is that you should be able to live a good life if you work hard then something is very wrong. A huge number of people work incredibly hard, yet still don't get to live a good life. A teacher (or nurse, developer, construction worker, etc) who puts in long hours working a stressful job and still doesn't earn enough to invest in a home, take a vacation, or raise a family. Where is the incentive for people to work hard if that's the case? You can't tell people that "you reap what you sow" if they're seeing other people sowing a huge amount and actually reaping very little. To anyone who might reply to suggest this means the reward for not working should be even lower, read The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich von Hayek first. He made a very good case that there's a necessity for decent welfare in modern societies because without it poor people will eventually rise up in a bloody revolution. It's happened many times in the past. Lowering welfare is, by logical extension, an argument in favour of murdering the wealthy.
    - charlesdm 10y ago
      My personal situation: I do work, but probably not more than a few hours a day, and yet make significantly more than most of my peers. I don't work hard at all (maybe once in a while), yet work smart. By most metrics my life is pretty good given I live a relatively free life without significant stress and plenty of money (not FU money, but I do alright). It also shows that you don't need to work hard to actually achieve something, and can still live well.
  - falcolas 10y ago
    If you don't work, and you're too moral to abuse the system, you can't live a reasonable standard of living. The more menial the job these moral people are forced to accept, the more jobs they have to find. I wonder how free they feel.
- brohoolio 10y ago
  Where does this happen? Where does 1/3 of the population get full governmental assistance? Are you including retirees, who paid into the system?
  - falcolas 10y ago
    My parents, retirees at 55, didn't pay into the system, as we see it today. My dad got a full pension working a blue collar job, on top of a middle wage salary. He's living off that pension, plus social security. I can't imagine many people being capable of retiring that way these days; jobs that offer good salaries and pensions hardly exist (mostly in the government), and it's likely social security won't be there for us. I hope I'm wrong on the latter, but it's hard to live on Social Security alone even today.
- brohoolio 10y ago
  Where does this happen? Where does 1/3 of the population get full governmental assistance? Are you including retirees, who paid into the system?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
itchyjunk 10y ago
Feels like i've seen this article around 3 times. 2 times within a month and has made it to front page every time. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13890782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13890782
- yazbo_mcclure 10y ago
  This is the first time I have seen it. If it is a problem I am glad it is a problem. I can't understand posts like this. Why bother pointing it out it's not constructive. It is obsessive and frankly I'd rather wash my hands of it.
HONEST_ANNIE 10y ago
Creat Filter[1] Hypothesis: The reason why it's difficult to meet technically advanced aliens in the galaxy is because technology brings direct ways to get meaning and satisfaction that far surpasses anything the real world can offer. Each civilization develops to the point where they can produce technology that can short circuit the evolutionary drive and replace it with something better (It can be 'Enlightement', 'Soma', 'immersive neural lace games and soap opera', or 'permanent intellectual, physical and existential orgasm by brain fungus') Intelligent agent can't derive meaning from rationality or intelligence using deduction. Self preservation is not more logical than being happy, it's provided by evolution. Those who explore universe have not fallen into this filter. Civilizations that pass this Great Filter are puritans. ---- [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter
ocschwar 10y ago
This would not bother me that much except for the way gamers get their minds warped by immersing themselves in their fantasy worlds for hours at a time.
- zero_iq 10y ago
  My god, they're almost as bad as books.
  - rabbyte 10y ago
    I don't know. I've never had an argument with an infantile book.
speeder 10y ago
I would flip the headline around a bit. It is more like Young men are blocked from job market and forced to spend their time gaming. Some people then ask me, forced how? They can't do anything else? Well, I know I can't... I don't own a car, no women want relationship with me (what sane woman would want a jobless carless guy that live with his parents?), I don't have money for any other hobbies... so I help with the business that still profit (I own and can inherit several of them) and play games, there is not much else to do, in fact many days were EXTREMELY boring, if I wasn't being treated I know I would be suicidal by now.
- maayank 10y ago
  Why 'jobless' though? Helping with a family business is a job
  - gpm 10y ago
    Most families don't have a family business.
    - maayank 10y ago
      Yeah, I meant in his specific case. I understood it as not having a 'proper' job is one of the reasons he sees for not having a relationship, while helping in the family business.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway_374 10y ago
  Don't you feel the drive and thrust to create and innovate and contribute to society? You're on here so you can probably code. You probably are lucky enough to have a very deep understanding of your family business (supply chain dynamics etc). Let's say it's a restaurant. I'd be killing to learn every detail inside out, spending hours on the internet trying to figure out how others approach the problem, improve efficiency and possibly create a product specific to the industry.
dade_ 10y ago
"Today’s games seem to be displacing careers, friendships and families, and thus stopping young people (particularly men) from starting real, adult lives." How very American Beauty. It is probably best for economists to avoid the topic of friends and family. What I see is a relatively untapped workforce segment that connects via a game console, handheld device or VR.

35 points by WheelsAtLarge 10y ago

The link sent me to an article about umami, "the fifth taste", not related to games or men. The main protagonist is a woman called Bonnie Chung who likes a Japanese food called miso.

RockofStrength 10y ago

Brave New World

k__ 10y ago

Can't blame them. Coding is a game for me too and its fun. If I had a less fun job, I'd probably play more games.

venomsnake 10y ago

Had pretty bad case of wow addiction. One day I just didn't have the desire to log in. But 3 years went down the drain. Now it is easy to get addicted to a game, but usually lose interest in a couple of days.

EJTH 10y ago

In many places of the world you get to work your ass off for decades while you see 1/3 of the population sitting on their hands while living of the back of the tax paying worker. I can understand that many get fed up, especially if they didn't get paid a whole lot to begin with.

charlesdm 10y ago
To each its own? People are free to live the life they want to live. No one is forcing you to work hard.
- wiradikusuma 10y ago
  and then expect good life? shouldn't it like "you reap what you sow"?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - onion2k 10y ago
    If the expectation is that you should be able to live a good life if you work hard then something is very wrong. A huge number of people work incredibly hard, yet still don't get to live a good life. A teacher (or nurse, developer, construction worker, etc) who puts in long hours working a stressful job and still doesn't earn enough to invest in a home, take a vacation, or raise a family. Where is the incentive for people to work hard if that's the case? You can't tell people that "you reap what you sow" if they're seeing other people sowing a huge amount and actually reaping very little. To anyone who might reply to suggest this means the reward for not working should be even lower, read The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich von Hayek first. He made a very good case that there's a necessity for decent welfare in modern societies because without it poor people will eventually rise up in a bloody revolution. It's happened many times in the past. Lowering welfare is, by logical extension, an argument in favour of murdering the wealthy.
  - charlesdm 10y ago
    My personal situation: I do work, but probably not more than a few hours a day, and yet make significantly more than most of my peers. I don't work hard at all (maybe once in a while), yet work smart. By most metrics my life is pretty good given I live a relatively free life without significant stress and plenty of money (not FU money, but I do alright). It also shows that you don't need to work hard to actually achieve something, and can still live well.
- falcolas 10y ago
  If you don't work, and you're too moral to abuse the system, you can't live a reasonable standard of living. The more menial the job these moral people are forced to accept, the more jobs they have to find. I wonder how free they feel.
brohoolio 10y ago
Where does this happen? Where does 1/3 of the population get full governmental assistance? Are you including retirees, who paid into the system?
- falcolas 10y ago
  My parents, retirees at 55, didn't pay into the system, as we see it today. My dad got a full pension working a blue collar job, on top of a middle wage salary. He's living off that pension, plus social security. I can't imagine many people being capable of retiring that way these days; jobs that offer good salaries and pensions hardly exist (mostly in the government), and it's likely social security won't be there for us. I hope I'm wrong on the latter, but it's hard to live on Social Security alone even today.
brohoolio 10y ago
Where does this happen? Where does 1/3 of the population get full governmental assistance? Are you including retirees, who paid into the system?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

itchyjunk 10y ago

Feels like i've seen this article around 3 times. 2 times within a month and has made it to front page every time. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13890782 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13890782

yazbo_mcclure 10y ago
This is the first time I have seen it. If it is a problem I am glad it is a problem. I can't understand posts like this. Why bother pointing it out it's not constructive. It is obsessive and frankly I'd rather wash my hands of it.

HONEST_ANNIE 10y ago

Creat Filter[1] Hypothesis: The reason why it's difficult to meet technically advanced aliens in the galaxy is because technology brings direct ways to get meaning and satisfaction that far surpasses anything the real world can offer. Each civilization develops to the point where they can produce technology that can short circuit the evolutionary drive and replace it with something better (It can be 'Enlightement', 'Soma', 'immersive neural lace games and soap opera', or 'permanent intellectual, physical and existential orgasm by brain fungus') Intelligent agent can't derive meaning from rationality or intelligence using deduction. Self preservation is not more logical than being happy, it's provided by evolution. Those who explore universe have not fallen into this filter. Civilizations that pass this Great Filter are puritans. ---- [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Filter

ocschwar 10y ago

This would not bother me that much except for the way gamers get their minds warped by immersing themselves in their fantasy worlds for hours at a time.

zero_iq 10y ago
My god, they're almost as bad as books.
- rabbyte 10y ago
  I don't know. I've never had an argument with an infantile book.

speeder 10y ago

I would flip the headline around a bit. It is more like Young men are blocked from job market and forced to spend their time gaming. Some people then ask me, forced how? They can't do anything else? Well, I know I can't... I don't own a car, no women want relationship with me (what sane woman would want a jobless carless guy that live with his parents?), I don't have money for any other hobbies... so I help with the business that still profit (I own and can inherit several of them) and play games, there is not much else to do, in fact many days were EXTREMELY boring, if I wasn't being treated I know I would be suicidal by now.

maayank 10y ago
Why 'jobless' though? Helping with a family business is a job
- gpm 10y ago
  Most families don't have a family business.
  - maayank 10y ago
    Yeah, I meant in his specific case. I understood it as not having a 'proper' job is one of the reasons he sees for not having a relationship, while helping in the family business.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
throwaway_374 10y ago
Don't you feel the drive and thrust to create and innovate and contribute to society? You're on here so you can probably code. You probably are lucky enough to have a very deep understanding of your family business (supply chain dynamics etc). Let's say it's a restaurant. I'd be killing to learn every detail inside out, spending hours on the internet trying to figure out how others approach the problem, improve efficiency and possibly create a product specific to the industry.

dade_ 10y ago

"Today’s games seem to be displacing careers, friendships and families, and thus stopping young people (particularly men) from starting real, adult lives." How very American Beauty. It is probably best for economists to avoid the topic of friends and family. What I see is a relatively untapped workforce segment that connects via a game console, handheld device or VR.