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The article is long on detail and short on suggestions (which is understandable). However, the suggestions it does make are not obviously going to work. The men

The article is long on detail and short on suggestions (which is understandable). However, the suggestions it does make are not obviously going to work. The men illustrated in the article do not seem incapable of work, but rather disinterested. Vocational training isn't going to fix the fact that the government benefits the article cited allows the men to stay at home playing video games all day. Most people (but especially men, given the propensity of the male psyche to become dependent on dopamine) would rather take the short term thrill of continuous dopamine hits provided by video games than working to make a living. Who can really blame them? For the vast majority of history, the main impetus for men to seek status of any kind is to impress women and provide a legacy for families. As the article mentions, men who are cut off from each of these simply stop participating in the kinds of behavior that make modern society possible. Enabled by the preponderance of easily accessible government money, drugs, etc, these men, lacking any legacy or dependents to speak of, would rather bide their time hedonistically. Some, realizing their situation, choose not to bide their time at all (look at the rise of middle aged male suicides). Unfortunately, the two causes the article cites (dissolution of family structure and rise of single male households) are unaddressed. This is understandable as even mentioning these problems in high society today would be frowned upon. The article admits this, but, the writer, being part of the same society he's criticizing, falls into the same trap.

duxup 7y ago
> the fact that the government benefits the article cited allows the men to stay at home playing video games all day Is that actually the case? The article takes issue with the narrative that supply and demand are involved ... but I don't think this article proves this idea that folks are enjoying government benefits and that results in them not working. The article certainly mentions it, but is pretty short on evidence. Plenty of US states have been cutting benefits, and they're not seeing people go back to work.
- rpiguy 7y ago
  Disability is a federal benefit (not state) and according to the article a whopping 2/3 of these men are on at least 1 federal disability benefit. Furthermore, 1/2 of the men take prescription pain medication daily. The government benefits certainly make it easier to not work, but the article does pain to say that correlation is not causation - it is a multi-factor phenomenon. Government benefits may enable the behavior but it isn't a cause. What really had my brain going is why is this not the case in the Western Europe? Social benefits are just as generous and marriage rates are lower than in the United States. According to the article in the US marriage and children were the strongest statistical differentiator between men who stop seeking work and those that do. All I could come up with is that in the US it is the pain medication and the fact that it is easier to isolate yourself and hole up in your home.
  - Miner49er 7y ago
    Could be the difference in pay for low wage jobs. It seems that this is what it comes down to. Many male, high-school dropouts have decided it's a better deal to just coast by on disability and money from friends/family then to work for $10/hour at McDonald's or similar. The way to bring them back into the workforce, IMO, is to offer them a better deal. If low-wage jobs in the U.S. were as good as they are in Eastern Europe, maybe more men would take them.
    - rpiguy 7y ago
      Another person commented below what I think is brilliant insight. "In America (USA) you ARE your job; it defines you. The American Way is to be hard working and self sufficient. If you can't do that, there are tremendous psychological effects. You can't blame these men for giving up." It is absolutely true that worth and career are highly correlated here in the US. Most of us talk about work even when we aren't at work. I think this is probably the big difference between US and Europe having read it.
      - tathougies 7y ago
        Meh. The idea that Americans talk only about their job is mainly only true in the upper classes of professionals. Most Americans, the poor and lower middle class, do not talk about their jobs, because talking about being a taxi driver or walmart greeter is not as engaging as talking about being an investment banker, lawyer, or software engineer. FWIW, the same is true in Europe. Rich people define themselves by the method in which they get rich. > Most of us talk about work even when we aren't at work People on hacker news are mostly upper middle class.
        phkahler 7y ago
        Another way to phrase that is that jobs at the lower end are not worth talking about. They're not a point of pride. Combine that with the GP notion that people use their job as part of their identity and what does that do to their self esteem?
- downerending 7y ago
  It's not the kind of safety net they're talking about, but a lot of the young are supported at a livable level by their parents. (source: am doing this) I'd argue that this isn't inherently bad, but ultimately this can amount to "eating one's seed corn". In the long run, twenty-somethings that do this risk a financially more perilous life and a lower chance of being able to give their kids a good start in life.
  - frockington1 7y ago
    Is there anything you have done that has improved motivation of your kids to get out of the house? I'm asking as a mid-twenty year old who has a few friends that haven't had a real job in years and wants to help. The main issue I've run into is that they just don;t care they are burdening their parents
    - marcosdumay 7y ago
      When I was younger, everybody just wished for independence. What changed? I'm betting on housing cost and low quality of life for youngs, but well, I do have very little evidence to substantiate it.
      - leetcrew 7y ago
        I have some twenty-something friends with upper-middle class parents who still live with them. they either didn't finish college or chose a less lucrative major than CS. they have low-wage jobs and mostly work less than fulltime. the common thread I see is that living with their parents simply offers a higher standard of living than they could have if they moved out. I live in a relatively low COL area, so they would certainly be able to make ends meet if they cut the cord. but they would eat worse food, have a smaller room, and little money left over to save or go out. I imagine it's hard to find to motivation to work harder just to move out and decrease one's standard of living. I was very fortunate to land a good job straight out of college where I was actually able to increase my standard of living after moving out (although I do miss my mom's cooking).
    - 7y ago
tenebrisalietum 7y ago
I'd rather the losers of society stay in their house, high and playing video games, rather than trying to impress women and provide a family legacy by engaging in gangster behavior to get money. Also, if society is so plentiful that it can handle a certain percentage of people doing nothing but living for pleasure, why not let them? Work is not valuable except for its product, and if its product is not needed, the work is worthless. If you are using work to bend adult people to a specific ideology (making the worker the product of his/her own work), you're being inefficient - it's not the job of a profession, company, etc. to provide social or moral training. Your comment seems to indicate a serious hatred of pleasure. I don't mind working hard, but if we don't have to, there's no point in it.
- tathougies 7y ago
  > Your comment seems to indicate a serious hatred of pleasure. On the contrary. My comment indicates a serious love affair with pleasure, but not a particular fondness for fleeting pleasure. The things I mention -- family, dependents, and responsibility -- are a pathway to long-term happiness, satisfaction, and ecstasy beyond the reach of so many. > I'd rather the losers of society stay in their house, high and playing video games, rather than trying to impress women and provide a family legacy by engaging in gangster behavior to get money. Well, no it's quite the opposite really. First of all, stop with the strawmanning. The men in this article are not 'gangsters'. They are otherwise law-abiding men. Secondly, you are employing a circular reasoning. You call these men losers because they are unmarried and play video games all day and don't work. You then tell me to not cast judgement on their idleness. I am not the one calling them 'losers'. These men being married and productive would not see them engaging in any kind of 'gangster' behavior. That is not a typical way to marriage and productive family life. > I don't mind working hard, but if we don't have to, there's no point in it. Well that's the point. Hard work is a path to happiness, but it's not one the human mind is naturally oriented towards unless there's some point to it.
- wwweston 7y ago
  I agree with your comment up to a point. At several points in my life I've dedicated it to recreation and felt great about it. :) I'm not sure that work is only valuable for its product, though, unless you expand the definition of "product" to include changes in the worker. There are certain forms of work we realize this about: we call them exercises or practice. But it applies to a lot of work whose point might be primarily understood as production. That isn't the only issue at hand, though. The number of unsolved problems or things that could just use dutiful attention in the world isn't so small that we can just write off hundreds of thousands of people from engagement with them. We seem to have a culture and institutions that increasingly leave a gap between some people and these attentions/duties, though. And that sounds like a problem worth reflecting on.
cheshireoctopus 7y ago
> given the propensity of the male psyche to become dependent on dopamine Interesting. This anecdotally appears to be the case. Is there anything to back this point up?
- diN0bot 7y ago
  could also be differences in socializations and cultural expectations. consider how we demonize single-moms receiving aid (god forbid they be women of color) and "boys will be boys" males fooling around and playing video games.
  - indigochill 7y ago
    There is another aspect here which I suspect contributes the majority of the demonizing in this situation: being a single parent is assumed to be a sign of a broken relationship, which signals potential personal problems (whether poor judgment in a partner, poor conflict management, whatever). Of course, in reality there could be a plethora of other reasons, but this seems to be the assumed narrative. On the other hand, consider the woman who's still single with no kids, maybe living at home with her parents, with no job. I suspect there'd be a lot less demonizing. Maybe even less so than towards the men, who are "supposed to be providing for a family".
- didibus 7y ago
  > This anecdotally appears to be the case. How so? You were given no anecdotes in the parent comment, so I don't understand why you think this is anecdotally demonstrated.
Seenso 7y ago
> Vocational training isn't going to fix the fact that the government benefits the article cited allows the men to stay at home playing video games all day. > Enabled by the preponderance of easily accessible government money, drugs, etc, these men... The benefits we're talking about here are disability benefits, and the intended outcome of those is that some people will be able to stay at home all day. "Fixing" this problem by curtailing the benefits would not fix anything, but rather just reintroduce the problems that the benefits solved (like increased economic burdens on loved ones, homelessness, etc.).
- DubiousPusher 7y ago
  Yeah, what this article fails to address at all is the way people like this got by historically. The truly 100% disabled were put into work houses or left on the street. Those partly able bodied had a much more diverse array of employment/living arrangements that society accepted. i.e. you could be partly disabled and get yourself a live in job as a domestic or farm hand. This ensured your room and board was covered and that daily you worked with a group of people who understood your needs. But it virtually guaranteed you'd never have a home or family of your own. The able bodied shirkers who didn't feel like working would do a few siffert thingsb, bum off family, work as cons or professional criminals, or find themselves a sweet job with a group of like minded shirkers or lackies that would cover for them. This changed a bit with the middle of the 20th centuury needing so many workers but then the U.S. unleashed women into the work force. The vast majority of them were bound to outshine the bottom 11% of men easily.
- thephyber 7y ago
  > “ Fixing" this problem by curtailing the benefits... Another way to address a partial fix is to decriminalize getting a job after previously being on disability. Currently that is used as evidence that there was no previous disability and can lead to prosecution for fraud and attempts to claw back those previous benefits.
  - L-four 7y ago
    It's even worse it works both ways. Trying to get a job can stop your benefits and if the job doesn't work out you'll have a hard time getting your benefits back. Better to not try.
Mirioron 7y ago
I don't think the two causes listed in the article are actually the causes. I think both are yet another symptom of an underlying problem. I would argue that men doing worse in schooling is likely another symptom of the same issue. I think that the heart of the issue is that more men nowadays feel that they just don't matter. Not to society nor to anyone else. This leads to a situation where they will simply sacrifice less and try to enjoy more. So why would men feel that way? My initial thoughts were that perhaps it is due to the recent demonization of men and the removal of some of their privileges, while the burdens (selective service, unfair family court) remained. While I think that these could be contributing (accelerating) factors, I don't think this is at the heart of the matter. We see similar trends in other countries, where lots of (young) men are essentially checking out from society. Japan is an example of a country where this problem has likely progressed further than in the US. My initial thoughts don't fit, because they couldn't explain why this same process would happen in countries with a pretty different culture from the US. I'm stumped. Perhaps it's somehow linked to the falling testosterone levels in men that we have observed?
- bazooka_penguin 7y ago
  Did cavemen have a conception of worth? Probably nowhere near what we would think of it. I think if you took these men and tossed them on an island with a forest some would wait to die, many, most would start chopping wood just to have something to do. It's better than being bored. I'm willing to bet very few of these social dropouts just lay in bed like vegetables all day, they're playing games, consuming media, doing something. And unfortunately that has a better, quicker mental payoff than going to work. I think the problem is that in older societies you didnt have much else to do but work outside of certain hours because of strict social taboos. Work was the fruit of exploiting men's simple behavior of looking for something to keep busy. Now video games and YouTube are accessible all day long as long as you have a computer or phone and internet, which benefits can provide. I sont think there's any complex civilization level social phenomenon, we just gave men something better to do and the means to do it
  - bumby 7y ago
    I think those cavemen would be busy trying to survive and not doing things out of bordem because they have too many real problems to worry about. What your comment reminded me of was Sebastian Junger's book Tribe. One of the central tenets of that book is that people need to feel valued by their tribe/family/society. Lack of this can lead to mental illness. Possibly manifesting as the type of malaise outlined in the article. Maybe one way to address this is to collectively start valuing those jobs that we've denoted as "low status" for the last decades. The jobs like plumbers, linemen, etc. that help make society work.
didibus 7y ago
It seems you speak as if you understand the underlying causes, and that really bothers me, because I see no explanation why you would, nothing to back up your assumptions, and nothing to demonstrate your causations. You don't even have anything to demonstrate correlation. So it's a very weak argument you are making. And, I'm okay playing hypothetical, but theorizing should be clear. You're theorizing and your theory is most likely wrong, and only minimally likely to be true. Due to the fact that for any issue, there are more theories that are wrong than right, those are the starting odds of theorization. And now more directly addressing your partocular theory, why do you believe people would rather choose video games over a vocational activity given exposure, access, and training to both?
- tathougies 7y ago
  In general, when someone states something that is not settled fact, they are stating their own opinion. Yes, I have stated my opinion on the topic as a reaction to what I read, which is I believe the purpose of hacker news. > You're theorizing and your theory is most likely wrong, and only minimally likely to be true. Due to the fact that for any issue, there are more theories that are wrong than right, those are the starting odds of theorization. Certainly, if one picked theories at absolute random. Random theories would be things like 'men aren't working because elephants are gray' or 'men aren't working because a new sunspot occurred' or 'men aren't working because harry potter is really a chimpanzee'. On the other hand, if theories are picked in accord with the data presented in an article on the topic, and with an understanding of human nature, as well an understanding of the limits of causation (like, realizing the color of elephants does not typically cause changes in employment), then there is a much greater likelihood of theories being correct. I would really recommend phrasing your comments better. Aside from being absolutely ridiculous (theories that humans formulate are very rarely picked at random, and you cannot pretend to understand the probability distribution of their truth value), your very comment is predicated itself on an arbitrary theory (that humans do indeed pick theories at random from the very large, perhaps infinite set of theories). Applying your own logic, your own theory is very likely to be wrong as well. > And now more directly addressing your partocular theory, why do you believe people would rather choose video games over a vocational activity given exposure, access, and training to both? Because video games are fun and I would rather sit at home and play video games if the government were paying me money and my parents hadn't made me afraid of going to hell if I defraud the government. Behind every man's opinion is his own assessment of his own character. I am not a saint, and I doubt most men are.
WalterBright 7y ago
> stay at home playing video games all day Playing video games is monumentally boring after a short while. I just can't understand people who disappear into them. Even the game I wrote for myself ( classicempire.com ) I rarely actually played, I'd spend my time trying to make the computer AI play better.
- TulliusCicero 7y ago
  Video games are more mentally challenging & stimulating overall than any other task I regularly engage in. Especially Starcraft, which is absolutely exhausting to play competitively. My day to day work as a programmer just doesn't push me mentally very hard. The kind of deep, exhaustive thinking I needed to get through difficult CS classes is unnecessary in most of my work (and the pacing is rather languid, most of the time).
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    Come join us in the D development effort. We have plenty of productive things to do that will push you past your limits. This kind of work is also good for giving your career a boost - this has happened to many on the D team.
    - harimau777 7y ago
      This sounds interesting. Can you give any more information?
      - WalterBright 7y ago
        The web site is dlang.org, the source tree is https://github.com/dlang https://github.com/dlang Just hang out in the forums forum.dlang.org for a while and you'll get sense of what's going. If you're ambitious, internally motivated, don't need to be micro-managed, and are a crackerjack programmer, you'll be welcome.
    - bulldoa 7y ago
      Do you guys accept contribution from junior devs (2-4 years out of college that have no compiler experience)?
gallamine 7y ago
Also not discussed is the impact of unlimited access to pornography for sexual gratification on the reduction in male desire to do things that traditionally would attract women.
- tathougies 7y ago
  Yes, absolutely!
- pontifier 7y ago
  Perhaps we should look toward legalization of prostitution to provide an alternative source of motivation for these young men to re-join the workforce.
  - gedy 7y ago
    That would be same as porn? Cheaper than a relationship and no need to make yourself attractive to a mate.
    - pontifier 7y ago
      I don't think so. I imagine that because prostitution must involve some 2 way communication that it could satisfy a deeper need in people. Why do some people go see therapists when they could just read self help books? It's the same thing right?
- belorn 7y ago
  Is there a reason to claim that access to pornography is effecting employment rates for men? Women did not exist the job market after internet access became widespread. It is thus hard to see any relation between access to pornography and employment rates outside of any gender stereotyping regarding both men and women.
roenxi 7y ago
It is a well written article for presenting facts. The lack of solutions is welcome to me; and I recall that the word 'crisis' is closer to meaning an unstable situation than an actual problem. The big open question here is what exactly should these people doing instead? 'Getting a job' is meaningless in itself - it isn't an end goal like 'secure my family's future'. If someone can survive comfortably without working then that is exactly what they should be doing; work isn't especially fun unless someone is a bit lucky with what they enjoy. The obvious 'solution' to me is to find a way to make these men more attractive to women so they can all start a family too; but the big problem there is there might not be enough women and they might not be interested in families so that is another dead-on-arrival idea. The only concerning part of the picture is the rise in suicides and the likely fact that the experience is lonely and unpleasent. The not-working part could be construed the silver lining in the story.
- linuxftw 7y ago
  > If someone can survive comfortably without working then that is exactly what they should be doing Sure, as long as they are able to afford this on their own dime. Why should others have to work so some can stay at home all day?
  - matz1 7y ago
    >Why should others have to work so some can stay at home all day? they don't have to, they can stay at home too but stay at home can be very depressing.
  - ameister14 7y ago
    From a utilitarian perspective, there are follow-on effects to homelessness that we don't want to encourage. That's why.
- tathougies 7y ago
  > If someone can survive comfortably without working then that is exactly what they should be doing; work isn't especially fun unless someone is a bit lucky with what they enjoy. As someone planning on retiring early, I completely agree, but these men are dependent on government benefits, which, being taken from my paycheck, are lengthening the amount of time I have before I can retire.
hellisothers 7y ago
> (but especially men, given the propensity of the male psyche to become dependent on dopamine) Where is this from, sounds interesting?
purplezooey 7y ago
"the preponderance of easily accessible government money" is kind of a stretch.
belorn 7y ago
"Most people (but especially men, given the propensity of the male psyche to become dependent on dopamine) would rather take the short term thrill of continuous dopamine" Please don't spread misinformation. Take an study like Sex differences in addiction (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286725/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286725/). If anything the propensity of the female psyche is more likely to become dependent on dopamine, but its an effect that only impact around 10-16% of the population. > the main impetus for men to seek status of any kind is to impress women and provide a legacy for families. Games provide an readily accessed environment for status competition among men. Women also gained a similar environment, called social networks. In both environments the objective is less about impressing the opposite sex and more about dominating the same sex. Unsurprisingly, if we look at what young men and young women spend their free time we see similar mount of excess from men choosing to play video games and women play the social network game. With women reaching equality in the work force it seems that men are also moving closer to equality in free time, especially at younger ages.
- remarkEon 7y ago
  Right, but as you said this >men choosing to play video games is just an extension of this >status competition among men and this >With women reaching equality in the work force it seems that men are also moving closer to equality in free time, especially at younger ages. is not necessarily an axiomatic good because of the above mentioned points.
- yocheckitdawg 7y ago
  This is an interesting comment to think about, I hadn't thought of comparing Women's social media usage to Men's video game playing. There are a lot of similarities at least on the surface, definitely an interesting one to think about.
vasilipupkin 7y ago
All this could be plausible, however in other countries many of the same factors are present, including government benefits, yet male labor force participation rates are higher.
pmarreck 7y ago
> given the propensity of the male psyche to become dependent on dopamine Do you have evidence for this assertion? Curious
fires10 7y ago
What government benefits allows a man to stay at home and not work? Just curious. I have tried to get government benefits when I was unemployed and got nothing but a small amount of unemployment benefits. $275 a week. That doesn't cover anything. No Medicaid or housing help would be given as I did not have children.
- xyzzyz 7y ago
  $275 a week puts you above the federal poverty threshold, and so, according to the government, is enough to cover basic needs. It is a pittance for HN crowd, but there are tens of millions of people in the US who survive on less than that.
  - bjourne 7y ago
    According to Google, the US minimum wage is $7.25. $7.25 * 40 = $290/fulltime week. Tens of millions surviving on less must be an exaggeration?
    - xyzzyz 7y ago
      No. 40 million Americans live for less than that, and half of that lives on less than half that. https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/m#/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-united-states https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/m#/faq/what-current-poverty-rate...
      - fires10 7y ago
        That is interesting. I will need to look into it more. Household size can skew the numbers with children involved. I could not rent a place and get food and other things like that for that amount. Also unemployment runs out after 6 months.
mam2 7y ago
Omg. Your message would have been written with "woman" instead of "man" youd would get legitimately drilled..

duxup 7y ago

> the fact that the government benefits the article cited allows the men to stay at home playing video games all day Is that actually the case? The article takes issue with the narrative that supply and demand are involved ... but I don't think this article proves this idea that folks are enjoying government benefits and that results in them not working. The article certainly mentions it, but is pretty short on evidence. Plenty of US states have been cutting benefits, and they're not seeing people go back to work.

rpiguy 7y ago
Disability is a federal benefit (not state) and according to the article a whopping 2/3 of these men are on at least 1 federal disability benefit. Furthermore, 1/2 of the men take prescription pain medication daily. The government benefits certainly make it easier to not work, but the article does pain to say that correlation is not causation - it is a multi-factor phenomenon. Government benefits may enable the behavior but it isn't a cause. What really had my brain going is why is this not the case in the Western Europe? Social benefits are just as generous and marriage rates are lower than in the United States. According to the article in the US marriage and children were the strongest statistical differentiator between men who stop seeking work and those that do. All I could come up with is that in the US it is the pain medication and the fact that it is easier to isolate yourself and hole up in your home.
- Miner49er 7y ago
  Could be the difference in pay for low wage jobs. It seems that this is what it comes down to. Many male, high-school dropouts have decided it's a better deal to just coast by on disability and money from friends/family then to work for $10/hour at McDonald's or similar. The way to bring them back into the workforce, IMO, is to offer them a better deal. If low-wage jobs in the U.S. were as good as they are in Eastern Europe, maybe more men would take them.
  - rpiguy 7y ago
    Another person commented below what I think is brilliant insight. "In America (USA) you ARE your job; it defines you. The American Way is to be hard working and self sufficient. If you can't do that, there are tremendous psychological effects. You can't blame these men for giving up." It is absolutely true that worth and career are highly correlated here in the US. Most of us talk about work even when we aren't at work. I think this is probably the big difference between US and Europe having read it.
    - tathougies 7y ago
      Meh. The idea that Americans talk only about their job is mainly only true in the upper classes of professionals. Most Americans, the poor and lower middle class, do not talk about their jobs, because talking about being a taxi driver or walmart greeter is not as engaging as talking about being an investment banker, lawyer, or software engineer. FWIW, the same is true in Europe. Rich people define themselves by the method in which they get rich. > Most of us talk about work even when we aren't at work People on hacker news are mostly upper middle class.
      - phkahler 7y ago
        Another way to phrase that is that jobs at the lower end are not worth talking about. They're not a point of pride. Combine that with the GP notion that people use their job as part of their identity and what does that do to their self esteem?
downerending 7y ago
It's not the kind of safety net they're talking about, but a lot of the young are supported at a livable level by their parents. (source: am doing this) I'd argue that this isn't inherently bad, but ultimately this can amount to "eating one's seed corn". In the long run, twenty-somethings that do this risk a financially more perilous life and a lower chance of being able to give their kids a good start in life.
- frockington1 7y ago
  Is there anything you have done that has improved motivation of your kids to get out of the house? I'm asking as a mid-twenty year old who has a few friends that haven't had a real job in years and wants to help. The main issue I've run into is that they just don;t care they are burdening their parents
  - marcosdumay 7y ago
    When I was younger, everybody just wished for independence. What changed? I'm betting on housing cost and low quality of life for youngs, but well, I do have very little evidence to substantiate it.
    - leetcrew 7y ago
      I have some twenty-something friends with upper-middle class parents who still live with them. they either didn't finish college or chose a less lucrative major than CS. they have low-wage jobs and mostly work less than fulltime. the common thread I see is that living with their parents simply offers a higher standard of living than they could have if they moved out. I live in a relatively low COL area, so they would certainly be able to make ends meet if they cut the cord. but they would eat worse food, have a smaller room, and little money left over to save or go out. I imagine it's hard to find to motivation to work harder just to move out and decrease one's standard of living. I was very fortunate to land a good job straight out of college where I was actually able to increase my standard of living after moving out (although I do miss my mom's cooking).
  - 7y ago

tenebrisalietum 7y ago

I'd rather the losers of society stay in their house, high and playing video games, rather than trying to impress women and provide a family legacy by engaging in gangster behavior to get money. Also, if society is so plentiful that it can handle a certain percentage of people doing nothing but living for pleasure, why not let them? Work is not valuable except for its product, and if its product is not needed, the work is worthless. If you are using work to bend adult people to a specific ideology (making the worker the product of his/her own work), you're being inefficient - it's not the job of a profession, company, etc. to provide social or moral training. Your comment seems to indicate a serious hatred of pleasure. I don't mind working hard, but if we don't have to, there's no point in it.

tathougies 7y ago
> Your comment seems to indicate a serious hatred of pleasure. On the contrary. My comment indicates a serious love affair with pleasure, but not a particular fondness for fleeting pleasure. The things I mention -- family, dependents, and responsibility -- are a pathway to long-term happiness, satisfaction, and ecstasy beyond the reach of so many. > I'd rather the losers of society stay in their house, high and playing video games, rather than trying to impress women and provide a family legacy by engaging in gangster behavior to get money. Well, no it's quite the opposite really. First of all, stop with the strawmanning. The men in this article are not 'gangsters'. They are otherwise law-abiding men. Secondly, you are employing a circular reasoning. You call these men losers because they are unmarried and play video games all day and don't work. You then tell me to not cast judgement on their idleness. I am not the one calling them 'losers'. These men being married and productive would not see them engaging in any kind of 'gangster' behavior. That is not a typical way to marriage and productive family life. > I don't mind working hard, but if we don't have to, there's no point in it. Well that's the point. Hard work is a path to happiness, but it's not one the human mind is naturally oriented towards unless there's some point to it.
wwweston 7y ago
I agree with your comment up to a point. At several points in my life I've dedicated it to recreation and felt great about it. :) I'm not sure that work is only valuable for its product, though, unless you expand the definition of "product" to include changes in the worker. There are certain forms of work we realize this about: we call them exercises or practice. But it applies to a lot of work whose point might be primarily understood as production. That isn't the only issue at hand, though. The number of unsolved problems or things that could just use dutiful attention in the world isn't so small that we can just write off hundreds of thousands of people from engagement with them. We seem to have a culture and institutions that increasingly leave a gap between some people and these attentions/duties, though. And that sounds like a problem worth reflecting on.

cheshireoctopus 7y ago

> given the propensity of the male psyche to become dependent on dopamine Interesting. This anecdotally appears to be the case. Is there anything to back this point up?

diN0bot 7y ago
could also be differences in socializations and cultural expectations. consider how we demonize single-moms receiving aid (god forbid they be women of color) and "boys will be boys" males fooling around and playing video games.
- indigochill 7y ago
  There is another aspect here which I suspect contributes the majority of the demonizing in this situation: being a single parent is assumed to be a sign of a broken relationship, which signals potential personal problems (whether poor judgment in a partner, poor conflict management, whatever). Of course, in reality there could be a plethora of other reasons, but this seems to be the assumed narrative. On the other hand, consider the woman who's still single with no kids, maybe living at home with her parents, with no job. I suspect there'd be a lot less demonizing. Maybe even less so than towards the men, who are "supposed to be providing for a family".
didibus 7y ago
> This anecdotally appears to be the case. How so? You were given no anecdotes in the parent comment, so I don't understand why you think this is anecdotally demonstrated.

Seenso 7y ago

> Vocational training isn't going to fix the fact that the government benefits the article cited allows the men to stay at home playing video games all day. > Enabled by the preponderance of easily accessible government money, drugs, etc, these men... The benefits we're talking about here are disability benefits, and the intended outcome of those is that some people will be able to stay at home all day. "Fixing" this problem by curtailing the benefits would not fix anything, but rather just reintroduce the problems that the benefits solved (like increased economic burdens on loved ones, homelessness, etc.).

DubiousPusher 7y ago
Yeah, what this article fails to address at all is the way people like this got by historically. The truly 100% disabled were put into work houses or left on the street. Those partly able bodied had a much more diverse array of employment/living arrangements that society accepted. i.e. you could be partly disabled and get yourself a live in job as a domestic or farm hand. This ensured your room and board was covered and that daily you worked with a group of people who understood your needs. But it virtually guaranteed you'd never have a home or family of your own. The able bodied shirkers who didn't feel like working would do a few siffert thingsb, bum off family, work as cons or professional criminals, or find themselves a sweet job with a group of like minded shirkers or lackies that would cover for them. This changed a bit with the middle of the 20th centuury needing so many workers but then the U.S. unleashed women into the work force. The vast majority of them were bound to outshine the bottom 11% of men easily.
thephyber 7y ago
> “ Fixing" this problem by curtailing the benefits... Another way to address a partial fix is to decriminalize getting a job after previously being on disability. Currently that is used as evidence that there was no previous disability and can lead to prosecution for fraud and attempts to claw back those previous benefits.
- L-four 7y ago
  It's even worse it works both ways. Trying to get a job can stop your benefits and if the job doesn't work out you'll have a hard time getting your benefits back. Better to not try.

Mirioron 7y ago

I don't think the two causes listed in the article are actually the causes. I think both are yet another symptom of an underlying problem. I would argue that men doing worse in schooling is likely another symptom of the same issue. I think that the heart of the issue is that more men nowadays feel that they just don't matter. Not to society nor to anyone else. This leads to a situation where they will simply sacrifice less and try to enjoy more. So why would men feel that way? My initial thoughts were that perhaps it is due to the recent demonization of men and the removal of some of their privileges, while the burdens (selective service, unfair family court) remained. While I think that these could be contributing (accelerating) factors, I don't think this is at the heart of the matter. We see similar trends in other countries, where lots of (young) men are essentially checking out from society. Japan is an example of a country where this problem has likely progressed further than in the US. My initial thoughts don't fit, because they couldn't explain why this same process would happen in countries with a pretty different culture from the US. I'm stumped. Perhaps it's somehow linked to the falling testosterone levels in men that we have observed?

bazooka_penguin 7y ago
Did cavemen have a conception of worth? Probably nowhere near what we would think of it. I think if you took these men and tossed them on an island with a forest some would wait to die, many, most would start chopping wood just to have something to do. It's better than being bored. I'm willing to bet very few of these social dropouts just lay in bed like vegetables all day, they're playing games, consuming media, doing something. And unfortunately that has a better, quicker mental payoff than going to work. I think the problem is that in older societies you didnt have much else to do but work outside of certain hours because of strict social taboos. Work was the fruit of exploiting men's simple behavior of looking for something to keep busy. Now video games and YouTube are accessible all day long as long as you have a computer or phone and internet, which benefits can provide. I sont think there's any complex civilization level social phenomenon, we just gave men something better to do and the means to do it
- bumby 7y ago
  I think those cavemen would be busy trying to survive and not doing things out of bordem because they have too many real problems to worry about. What your comment reminded me of was Sebastian Junger's book Tribe. One of the central tenets of that book is that people need to feel valued by their tribe/family/society. Lack of this can lead to mental illness. Possibly manifesting as the type of malaise outlined in the article. Maybe one way to address this is to collectively start valuing those jobs that we've denoted as "low status" for the last decades. The jobs like plumbers, linemen, etc. that help make society work.

didibus 7y ago

It seems you speak as if you understand the underlying causes, and that really bothers me, because I see no explanation why you would, nothing to back up your assumptions, and nothing to demonstrate your causations. You don't even have anything to demonstrate correlation. So it's a very weak argument you are making. And, I'm okay playing hypothetical, but theorizing should be clear. You're theorizing and your theory is most likely wrong, and only minimally likely to be true. Due to the fact that for any issue, there are more theories that are wrong than right, those are the starting odds of theorization. And now more directly addressing your partocular theory, why do you believe people would rather choose video games over a vocational activity given exposure, access, and training to both?

tathougies 7y ago
In general, when someone states something that is not settled fact, they are stating their own opinion. Yes, I have stated my opinion on the topic as a reaction to what I read, which is I believe the purpose of hacker news. > You're theorizing and your theory is most likely wrong, and only minimally likely to be true. Due to the fact that for any issue, there are more theories that are wrong than right, those are the starting odds of theorization. Certainly, if one picked theories at absolute random. Random theories would be things like 'men aren't working because elephants are gray' or 'men aren't working because a new sunspot occurred' or 'men aren't working because harry potter is really a chimpanzee'. On the other hand, if theories are picked in accord with the data presented in an article on the topic, and with an understanding of human nature, as well an understanding of the limits of causation (like, realizing the color of elephants does not typically cause changes in employment), then there is a much greater likelihood of theories being correct. I would really recommend phrasing your comments better. Aside from being absolutely ridiculous (theories that humans formulate are very rarely picked at random, and you cannot pretend to understand the probability distribution of their truth value), your very comment is predicated itself on an arbitrary theory (that humans do indeed pick theories at random from the very large, perhaps infinite set of theories). Applying your own logic, your own theory is very likely to be wrong as well. > And now more directly addressing your partocular theory, why do you believe people would rather choose video games over a vocational activity given exposure, access, and training to both? Because video games are fun and I would rather sit at home and play video games if the government were paying me money and my parents hadn't made me afraid of going to hell if I defraud the government. Behind every man's opinion is his own assessment of his own character. I am not a saint, and I doubt most men are.

WalterBright 7y ago

> stay at home playing video games all day Playing video games is monumentally boring after a short while. I just can't understand people who disappear into them. Even the game I wrote for myself ( classicempire.com ) I rarely actually played, I'd spend my time trying to make the computer AI play better.

TulliusCicero 7y ago
Video games are more mentally challenging & stimulating overall than any other task I regularly engage in. Especially Starcraft, which is absolutely exhausting to play competitively. My day to day work as a programmer just doesn't push me mentally very hard. The kind of deep, exhaustive thinking I needed to get through difficult CS classes is unnecessary in most of my work (and the pacing is rather languid, most of the time).
- WalterBright 7y ago
  Come join us in the D development effort. We have plenty of productive things to do that will push you past your limits. This kind of work is also good for giving your career a boost - this has happened to many on the D team.
  - harimau777 7y ago
    This sounds interesting. Can you give any more information?
    - WalterBright 7y ago
      The web site is dlang.org, the source tree is https://github.com/dlang https://github.com/dlang Just hang out in the forums forum.dlang.org for a while and you'll get sense of what's going. If you're ambitious, internally motivated, don't need to be micro-managed, and are a crackerjack programmer, you'll be welcome.
  - bulldoa 7y ago
    Do you guys accept contribution from junior devs (2-4 years out of college that have no compiler experience)?

gallamine 7y ago

Also not discussed is the impact of unlimited access to pornography for sexual gratification on the reduction in male desire to do things that traditionally would attract women.

tathougies 7y ago
Yes, absolutely!
pontifier 7y ago
Perhaps we should look toward legalization of prostitution to provide an alternative source of motivation for these young men to re-join the workforce.
- gedy 7y ago
  That would be same as porn? Cheaper than a relationship and no need to make yourself attractive to a mate.
  - pontifier 7y ago
    I don't think so. I imagine that because prostitution must involve some 2 way communication that it could satisfy a deeper need in people. Why do some people go see therapists when they could just read self help books? It's the same thing right?
belorn 7y ago
Is there a reason to claim that access to pornography is effecting employment rates for men? Women did not exist the job market after internet access became widespread. It is thus hard to see any relation between access to pornography and employment rates outside of any gender stereotyping regarding both men and women.

roenxi 7y ago

It is a well written article for presenting facts. The lack of solutions is welcome to me; and I recall that the word 'crisis' is closer to meaning an unstable situation than an actual problem. The big open question here is what exactly should these people doing instead? 'Getting a job' is meaningless in itself - it isn't an end goal like 'secure my family's future'. If someone can survive comfortably without working then that is exactly what they should be doing; work isn't especially fun unless someone is a bit lucky with what they enjoy. The obvious 'solution' to me is to find a way to make these men more attractive to women so they can all start a family too; but the big problem there is there might not be enough women and they might not be interested in families so that is another dead-on-arrival idea. The only concerning part of the picture is the rise in suicides and the likely fact that the experience is lonely and unpleasent. The not-working part could be construed the silver lining in the story.

linuxftw 7y ago
> If someone can survive comfortably without working then that is exactly what they should be doing Sure, as long as they are able to afford this on their own dime. Why should others have to work so some can stay at home all day?
- matz1 7y ago
  >Why should others have to work so some can stay at home all day? they don't have to, they can stay at home too but stay at home can be very depressing.
- ameister14 7y ago
  From a utilitarian perspective, there are follow-on effects to homelessness that we don't want to encourage. That's why.
tathougies 7y ago
> If someone can survive comfortably without working then that is exactly what they should be doing; work isn't especially fun unless someone is a bit lucky with what they enjoy. As someone planning on retiring early, I completely agree, but these men are dependent on government benefits, which, being taken from my paycheck, are lengthening the amount of time I have before I can retire.

hellisothers 7y ago

> (but especially men, given the propensity of the male psyche to become dependent on dopamine) Where is this from, sounds interesting?

purplezooey 7y ago

"the preponderance of easily accessible government money" is kind of a stretch.

belorn 7y ago

"Most people (but especially men, given the propensity of the male psyche to become dependent on dopamine) would rather take the short term thrill of continuous dopamine" Please don't spread misinformation. Take an study like Sex differences in addiction (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286725/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286725/). If anything the propensity of the female psyche is more likely to become dependent on dopamine, but its an effect that only impact around 10-16% of the population. > the main impetus for men to seek status of any kind is to impress women and provide a legacy for families. Games provide an readily accessed environment for status competition among men. Women also gained a similar environment, called social networks. In both environments the objective is less about impressing the opposite sex and more about dominating the same sex. Unsurprisingly, if we look at what young men and young women spend their free time we see similar mount of excess from men choosing to play video games and women play the social network game. With women reaching equality in the work force it seems that men are also moving closer to equality in free time, especially at younger ages.

remarkEon 7y ago
Right, but as you said this >men choosing to play video games is just an extension of this >status competition among men and this >With women reaching equality in the work force it seems that men are also moving closer to equality in free time, especially at younger ages. is not necessarily an axiomatic good because of the above mentioned points.
yocheckitdawg 7y ago
This is an interesting comment to think about, I hadn't thought of comparing Women's social media usage to Men's video game playing. There are a lot of similarities at least on the surface, definitely an interesting one to think about.

vasilipupkin 7y ago

All this could be plausible, however in other countries many of the same factors are present, including government benefits, yet male labor force participation rates are higher.

pmarreck 7y ago

> given the propensity of the male psyche to become dependent on dopamine Do you have evidence for this assertion? Curious

fires10 7y ago

What government benefits allows a man to stay at home and not work? Just curious. I have tried to get government benefits when I was unemployed and got nothing but a small amount of unemployment benefits. $275 a week. That doesn't cover anything. No Medicaid or housing help would be given as I did not have children.

xyzzyz 7y ago
$275 a week puts you above the federal poverty threshold, and so, according to the government, is enough to cover basic needs. It is a pittance for HN crowd, but there are tens of millions of people in the US who survive on less than that.
- bjourne 7y ago
  According to Google, the US minimum wage is $7.25. $7.25 * 40 = $290/fulltime week. Tens of millions surviving on less must be an exaggeration?
  - xyzzyz 7y ago
    No. 40 million Americans live for less than that, and half of that lives on less than half that. https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/m#/faq/what-current-poverty-rate-united-states https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/m#/faq/what-current-poverty-rate...
    - fires10 7y ago
      That is interesting. I will need to look into it more. Household size can skew the numbers with children involved. I could not rent a place and get food and other things like that for that amount. Also unemployment runs out after 6 months.

mam2 7y ago

Omg. Your message would have been written with "woman" instead of "man" youd would get legitimately drilled..