24 ms·

Men Without Work (2016)

141 points by ianai 4y ago

password4321 4y ago
I think this discussion from 3 weeks ago is somewhat relevant, when people are satisfied with success in virtual worlds: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34019486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34019486
deterministic 4y ago
I am not surprised really. If the alternative to not working is to have a minimum wage job where you get treated like shit by customers and management every day.
- WhiteBlueSkies 4y ago
  I had an almost minimum job in early twenties. It was lots of hard work but I don't regret it. The boss was a total jerk but I made some friends. You've no idea of the camradarie that comes up when you've a shitty boss and a list burgers that you have to cook ASAP. Gets your blood flowing. Definitely that would've been preferable than just sitting at home idly playing video games and becoming more and more depressed.
  - deterministic 4y ago
    Yeah having good colleagues makes a big difference. You all support each other against a common enemy. I once worked for a very-much-not-minimum-job dysfunctional company where even the colleagues were jerks. That was pretty bad. Luckily that is the only bad experience I have had. Most companies I worked for in my career were pretty good.
throwawaymal 4y ago
Decisions i made right after graduation was not working for others and no marriage. I spend all on myself and find a date easily for a little money.
- annyeonghada 4y ago
  This is the way. The social contract is broken, we are left with hedonism and distraction. I love it.
ianai 4y ago
In lieu of any particular review I’m submitting the Wikipedia page. I was unemployed for most of the Great Recession and can empathize with much of this book. I also just remember the “tragedy of my twenties” realizing society had basically no interest in me. Despite a math degree and IT/programming experience. Then the myriad people I’ve interacted with in the last decade plus who are in this situation. Luckily I now have good paying career. But I fear a society that leaves so many cold.
- fullshark 4y ago
  Society (meaning gov't programs) doesn't care about you beyond your economic output. We offshored countless unskilled labor jobs that men would traditionally take in America and told them they needed to take out crippling loans in order to get knowledge worker skills that our industry is working overtime to make obsolete within 5-10 years anyway. Many just are giving up, they don't see an opportunity here, they just are going to play video games, take drugs, and accomplish nothing with their lives.
  - ianai 4y ago
    Actually, society varies. But social contract theory does point out that the contract goes both ways. And that society works, in the interest of self sustenance, by making the individual lives better than they would be outside of society. Otherwise a society won’t last long or diminish with time. Progress could be as simple as introducing or better funding employment programs. It’d clearly really help if there was some clearinghouse type organization informing people about labor market opportunities based on the individual characteristics. The clearinghouse could seek information directly from employers as to preferences/priorities/etc. But also some people just cannot function in society without some kind of back support. It can’t be a social optimization to leave such people to homelessness.
    - nradov 4y ago
      The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes data on current and predicted future labor market opportunities. https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/occupations-most-job-growth.htm https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/occupations-most-job-growth.h...
cs702 4y ago
Many men who would have done well as labor or middle management in, say, 20th century factories, now find themselves the victims of a rapidly changing, ever-more-concentrated, ever-more-automated global capitalist economy that has less and less need for them. And to them it feels as if no one cares about them. To riff on Churchill[a]: Capitalism is the worst economic system ever invented... except for all others that have been tried from time to time. It's ruthless. There may be a better system... but it hasn't been invented yet. For now, we must figure out how to make this horrible system -- capitalism -- be less horrible, including for all those men who now find themselves marginalized by it. If we blindly let AI-powered software "eat the world" unfettered, without humane constraints, we'd only see greater concentration of economic and political power going forward, which would likely end up in some kind of really ugly societal breakdown. -- [a] https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form-of-government/ https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form... EDITS: Many, necessary for more accurately articulating my thoughts.
- bobkazamakis 4y ago
  "deaths because of communism are entirely because of communism, but deaths because of capitalism are because you didn't pull your bootstraps hard enough"
  - cs702 4y ago
    Yes, capitalism on its own, without any kind of social and individual-rights safety net, is ruthlessly cruel. "The worst."
  - sschueller 4y ago
    Capitalism wants you to think it's your fault but when you get sick from poisoned food and water but it's entirely the fault of the greedy capitalist that put profits over all. Sure that in true capitalism the bad actors go out of business but how many die before that happens? What do I care if people die because my actions today in 100 years, I won't be around to have to face the consequences... /s
    - 4y ago
afavour 4y ago
I'm very far from a red-pilled anti-feminist but I do think this is a hugely overlooked problem. Perhaps too much of an aside but I was lucky enough to be able to take an extended parental leave when my child was born, being a "stay at home dad" for the best part of a year. It was incredibly hard work, incredibly rewarding but also a real eye opener at how society still doesn't know what to do with a full-time parent that isn't a woman. Meetups are still called "New Mums Groups", you get shifty looks at playgrounds, playspaces etc., endless questions about what it is that you do. Even the people trying to be positive end up being somewhat patronising ("oh are you babysitting today!"). Anyway, point is, true equality would mean that it's absolutely fine for a man to stay at home and raise a family while the woman is the breadwinner. We're not there and that hurts both men and women.
- javajosh 4y ago
  The fact that you need to apologize and explain why you care about issues that might affect men is telling in and of itself. The American Zeitgeist around gender issues is distorted to dehumanize men and alienate anyone who even dares to recognize this fact. I'm a pretty hardcore liberal and I I'm totally astonished on a daily basis at the hate in vitriol directed at men that go without comment, let alone castigation that it deserves. As for the rest of your post, absolutely. I love being a dad and it's a shame that our society doesn't seem to care much about father's apart from being a provider of money. Every man should be aware that if things go south and their marriage that their children could be taken away from them and they will be vilified if they try to get them back. You will not get sympathy from your friends or family or from the public at large. He will be fighting the tide.
  - afavour 4y ago
    > The American Zeitgeist around gender issues is distorted to dehumanize men and alienate anyone who even dares to recognize this fact. I'm conflicted about that. Not denying that what you've said is true but I specifically chose the term "red pilled" because there are huge toxic (predominantly online) communities that are openly misogynistic. e.g. in theory I'd like and participate in the "men's rights" subreddit, in reality it's a pit of toxicity. Some of the frustration there is justified (family law definitely seems biased against fathers) but the result is not positive. I'd also add: a lot of this societal pressure against men being accepted as stay at home parents comes from men.
adolph 4y ago
In the transition to a post-scarcity world it may be that this crisis represents a transition in which people's mental wellbeing is less moored to earnings and oriented more toward value.
- jnmandal 4y ago
  Are you implying we are approaching a post-scarcity world now?
  - verdverm 4y ago
    we are not getting further away, closer, so this would be "approaching" GP may be more referring to the reduction in need for physical labor based jobs as robotics and automation increase, more than "post-scarcity," a "post-labor-scarcity" should arrive beforehand But to GP's point, transitions take a long time and we are already seeing the early changes. It's not like it has not started
  - zackmorris 4y ago
    Dunno about the parent, but for me, post-scarcity means that struggle exists for synthetic reasons that aren't due to resource constraints. For example, billionaires running 3 companies (poorly) is an indicator that they could stand to pay higher taxes so the rest of us don't have to pay their share. Oil companies with a combined worth of trillions of dollars would do just fine without their subsidies when we already have cars like Aptera and Lightyear 0 getting over 40 miles of range per day on solar alone. Factory farming has not prevented us paying $5+ for a dozen eggs. And so on. By these kinds of metrics, I would say that we passed into post-scarcity sometime between the late 60s and the rise of Reaganomics in the early 80s. Certainly by 1990 with the fall of the USSR. Everything since, and especially pivotal events like the Dot Bomb, 9/11 and the Housing Bubble popping, were due to the post-truth reality that filled the void left by scarcity. This was all fairly obvious by the time The Matrix and Fight Club came out in 1999. Similar movies like In Time are practically documentaries now IMHO.
  - adolph 4y ago
    As the sibling comments' note, post-scarcity is the direction of progress even if not yet the position. Scarcity's object is a moving target, of course. For example, instead of abject starvation, the primary focus becomes food security. This is progress to be celebrated. At the same time as things like basic foodstuffs are becoming ubiquitously available, there is also a dematerialization of humanity. A prime example are household goods, like phone book, encyclopedia, cookbooks, typewriter, checkbook, phone and answering machine, etc that are made redundant by inexpensive compute and connectivity. In addition to the basics being non-scarce the highest intellectual achievements of the world are simultaneously delivered in better quality for less than ever. Are we approaching a post-scarcity world now? Yes and, as always, the future isn't evenly distributed. A society that can afford to hold labor pools un-utilized indicates one that is rich in basic needs. For it to be a crisis that their labor is not required indicates a society poor in imagination.
65 4y ago
Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29633355-men-without-work https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29633355-men-without-wor...
wpietri 4y ago
Since the Wikipedia article is so bare, I'm concerned that this discussion will mainly be a vibes-based shouting match based on the title. In hopes of averting that, some meatier content: A piece from the book's author: https://time.com/4504004/men-without-work/ https://time.com/4504004/men-without-work/ Some reviews and discussions: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2016/09/15/americas-lost-workers-eberstadt-men-without-work/ https://www.nybooks.com/online/2016/09/15/americas-lost-work... https://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/10/11/13176948/labor-force-participation https://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/10/11/13176948/labor-forc... https://archive.ph/20170311160320/https://www.ft.com/content/eb0c4aa4-80b5-11e6-8e50-8ec15fb462f4 https://archive.ph/20170311160320/https://www.ft.com/content...
- dang 4y ago
  Great, I've changed from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_Without_Work_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_Without_Work_(book) to that first article. Thanks! Wikipedia submissions are good when there isn't a substantive article out there, but not good when they're just a generic summary of what can be explored more specifically in other places. Past explanations about this: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20wikipedia%20submission&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
tejohnso 4y ago
> Statistically, the labor force involvement for men twenty and older fell from 86% to 68% between 1948 and 2015 So what are they doing instead? How are they surviving?
- goldenchrome 4y ago
  They’re NEETs. Likely live with their parents. May sell odd things here and there to make a buck. Likely invested in cryptos which until recently was enough to get by. Often getting some government gibs like unemployment or disability benefits. American society doesn’t know how to use low skilled men so we keep ‘em fed and put them to the side.
  - giantg2 4y ago
    Probably a lot of FIRE too, if I remember right. Edit: Why disagree?
  - TylerLives 4y ago
    >American society doesn’t know how to use low skilled men What's the solution though? I can think of 3: 1) Bullshit jobs (i.e. fake jobs or real jobs that exist only to support fake jobs. This is the current answer) 2) Universal Basic Income - Doesn't solve the problem of giving people meaningful work, but gives them some freedom to discover/create their own solutions 3) Artificially making life more difficult - For example, banning furniture companies that are too good at their job. Want new furniture? Here are some tools, go and make it. Maybe find some friends to help you with it too. This solution would solve the problem, but it would be extremely unpopular and would likely need to be enforced globally, or people would just go to a place where they can buy furniture cheaply. First solution will likely continue to be the most popular one. I hope the second solution continues to gain popularity, maybe not directly as UBI, but something similar. Third solution is extremely unlikely, it's more of a thought experiment to realize how solving real problems gives us meaning and creates bonds among people. Kaczynski writes about this when he writes about three groups of human drives.
    - 9530jh9054ven 4y ago
asperous 4y ago
I wrote the original wikipedia article for this! I haven't read the book just thought it was notable. It was a little tough getting past the editors (the section referencing all those news articles they made me put in to reach notability). I also got called a shill for the publisher.
- patorjk 4y ago
  I don't understand why some people feel the need to be so snarky in their summary messages: > I'll bet this clown got paid to write this article and they did a poor job of it, too. It's really turned me off from contributing. Years ago I got into a spat where someone didn't like something I added to an article and said my sources weren't valid since they were blog posts. I went and found a mainstream magazine article on the topic and they still balked - but eventually relented since they really didn't have a leg to stand on. They silently removed the addition a few months later. However, at that point I was over it and didn't care. The fact eventually made it back into the article a few years later when someone else added it in.
  - Beltalowda 4y ago
    In practice Wikipedia is often an effortocracy, not the meritocracy it wants to be.
blahblah1234567 4y ago
I think "Men Without Work" is a euphemism. The problem is: - Men without Skills in-demand-- skills which are at least somewhat fulfilling & interesting to those men. Solution: Research labor data for careers in high demand, then cross reference those careers with skills a person is interested in. Then identify resources & a roadmap for learning those skills. And sit down, and put the time in to learn & apply those skills at a novice to intermediate level. - Men who refuse to work. Part of why they refuse to work is that they might not recognize the solution above: to build skills relevant to a career they consider meaningful. This may also be due to a lack of monetary resources to live somewhat comfortably while building those skills (That said, I lived in a tent for months while teaching myself web development). Or they are overburdened by obligations and decided to give up and check out of society (i.e. turn towards homelessness and/or drugs) Caveat: I know some folks who call themselves "poor folks". The reality is that their problem isn't that they're poor. Their problem is that they refuse to put together a well formatted resume, apply to jobs, and accept that they may have to start at the bottom of the career ladder. (And/or build new skills) The concept of "Work" is but one link on a dependency chain: Study -> Skills -> Productivity -> Work -> Career -> Build resources
- Damogran6 4y ago
  Unspecified in all of this is: Society at large needs less labor to function. What happens when all of the production is automated to the point we don't NEED 'Men to work'? What do we do with them? What mischief do they get into when they have idle hands?
  - giantg2 4y ago
    I mostly agree. I feel like some people will gravitate back towards self sufficient activities. There are a lot of people on this site doing stuff like building their own furniture, gardening, etc. Of course I do think there will be a subset that use their time for more destructive things, as happens even now.
    - ponow 4y ago
wheelerof4te 4y ago
First world problems. When they don't exist, you invent them. EDIT: Young people who can work but don't surely have a reason why they don't work. Some are happy just freeloading and enjoying life on someone else's expense (often their parents). Others have a solid income on the side, just doing freelance stuff. There are also those who have saved some money while working part-time. Now they just want to live their life before comitting to full time work.
Clent 4y ago
Brute force is no longer useful to our economy. We continue to replace male labor with machines. The last vestige is the trades, mostly in the construction industry. It's only a matter of time until the technology industry gets around to disrupting male labor out of the trades.
tonmoy 4y ago
As I can’t find the book or the data it references, can someone more knowledgeable comment on the validity (and interpretation) of the data?
warinukraine 4y ago
What a coincidence, just yesterday I watched his interview with the Hoover Institution. It's on youtube.
vedran 4y ago
The book "Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men" by Leonard Sax goes into a lot of detail behind some of the underlying problems causing this.
- takoid 4y ago
  For anyone else wondering what the five factors are: > Sax’s research found that the following five factors attribute to our society of underachieving, disengaged boys: (1) changes at school; (2) video games; (3) medications for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD); (4) endocrine disruptors; and (5) the revenge of the forsaken gods. From this Amazon review which also goes into further detail: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2UQS7MYS7I5JI/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2UQS7MYS7I5JI/
  - gota 4y ago
    Im sorry, but item (5) means less than nothing without context. Can someone who read it please add some? I'll go looking for it & will edit this (if I make it in time, before the editing window closes)
    - takoid 4y ago
      Also from the linked review: > In Dr. Sax’s final factor “the revenge of the forsaken gods,” he identified in leading to a generation of unmotivated, disengaged boys and men. Boys need strong male remodels to emulate and look-up to. Dr. Sax stressing that gender does matter because “boys and girls differ with respect to risk factors for social pathology” (p. 178).
MrMember 4y ago
60% of college graduates are women and the gap widens every year. It's going to get a lot worse before (if) it gets better.
- dudul 4y ago
  Some gaps matter more than others /s
lordfrito 4y ago
My 2c. Society doesn't care about young men. They're pretty much left to fend for themselves. Hopefully they have a good family structure, and a few good male friends. Without that they're toally adrift. I learned this lesson when I got a flat tire driving across two states when I was 20. No one is willing to help. I guarantee a 20 yo woman would have no problem flagging down help, heck people would stop to help without being asked. I'm 51 now, and I understand why more and more men are checking out. The grind isn't worth it. There's a reward system in play here, you grind at life and are rewarded. Grind in school and you graduate. Grind more and you get a degree. Grind more and you get a family and career and some big toys. It seems that the amount of grinding men have to do is increasing, and the net rewards society bestows seem to be decreasing. I won't get into a shouting match on what the problems men experience are, you can fill in the blanks with your own experiences and biases, but all the men I know seem to agree that there seems to be less of an upside to sacrificing for the greater good than there used to be. As a middle aged man strangers I meet expect the worst from me, why should I try? As an alternative you can spend your hours grinding away at video games and leveling up. And the games are getting better every year. It seems to me that many young men are finding leveling up in games is simply more rewarding than leveling up in real life. I wish it weren't so, but here we are. Historically speaking, civilization is built and defended largely on the backs of young men. When they check out, it can't be a net good for the trajectory of society. Or maybe this is a win for feminism? Women finally have work equality and so men don't have to work as hard anymore. I don't have answers. But the trend has been clear for a long while.
- Karawebnetwork 4y ago
  > Or maybe this is a win for feminism? I understand this is a passing remark, but I want to answer the question anyway. Feminism is not about making men's lives more difficult or about cheering when men struggle. Most feminists believe that gender equality can benefit everyone, including men, by creating a more just society. It is not about oppression or mistreatment of any group, not of even men. Men supporting and helping other men benefits feminism and women by challenging traditional gender roles and expectations. In a lot of countries, the cultural norm is for men to be strong, independent and self-sufficient and not to seek help or support from others, especially other men. This creates a culture of toxic masculinity (not all masculinity is toxic, only the toxic kind is problematic). In such a culture men are expected to repress their feelings, hide their vulnerability, and not seek support when they need it, etc. Often, women are expected to fit under the exact opposite (not being allowed to stand alone, expected to be vulnerable and emotional, etc.) as if we were sharing a limited pie and not the potentialy unlimited social world we live in. This is harmful to people of all gender. Breaking down traditional gender roles and expectations and supporting and helping each other is good for everyone. This can also help reduce the stigma and shame that may be associated with men seeking help or support and encourage more men to seek the help and support they need. This in turn can help create a more equitable and just society for all, which is one of the main goals of feminism. I wish the men in my live all had the same kind of emotionally vulnerable relationships I have with the women in my life. I can't begin to imagine how hard and lonely it can be to live in a world that prevent you from connecting freely with others. In my book, anything that makes life harder for men is a loss for feminism.
slibhb 4y ago
[flagged]
- yterdy 4y ago
  Until one of them walks into your grocery store or your child's classroom and unloads a few clips out of his AR-15, I would hazard to guess. That's the more extreme outcome, of course. You also have, "heavily influencing a subculture that stews in a semi-justified atmosphere of victimization until mass media figures out how commodify it, and you wake up a decade later to find that pop culture has become dominated by spandex and CG energy blasts." Never ascribe to personal choice, without support, what is evidently a systemic issue. "We" could have chosen to pay these people to pursue their creative or intellectual interests, or to physically improve their communities or other places-in-need - a new deal, of sorts.
  - slibhb 4y ago
    I think it's personal choice and in many cases a rational one. Men who don't want to start families and have no particular ambition really have no reason to work.
    - yterdy 4y ago
      Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man. (That said, it's one that you didn't bother to support, so I'll just tap my previous reply and be on my way.)
Balgair 4y ago
Aside: Since there is a lot of commentary about 'being a real man' here, I thought I'd drop two links that really helped out those close to me 'snip the apron strings'. https://www.artofmanliness.com/ https://www.artofmanliness.com/ https://www.scouting.org/ https://www.scouting.org/

141 points by ianai 4y ago

I think this discussion from 3 weeks ago is somewhat relevant, when people are satisfied with success in virtual worlds: Ask HN: How do you protect your children from internet addiction? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34019486 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34019486

deterministic 4y ago

I am not surprised really. If the alternative to not working is to have a minimum wage job where you get treated like shit by customers and management every day.

WhiteBlueSkies 4y ago
I had an almost minimum job in early twenties. It was lots of hard work but I don't regret it. The boss was a total jerk but I made some friends. You've no idea of the camradarie that comes up when you've a shitty boss and a list burgers that you have to cook ASAP. Gets your blood flowing. Definitely that would've been preferable than just sitting at home idly playing video games and becoming more and more depressed.
- deterministic 4y ago
  Yeah having good colleagues makes a big difference. You all support each other against a common enemy. I once worked for a very-much-not-minimum-job dysfunctional company where even the colleagues were jerks. That was pretty bad. Luckily that is the only bad experience I have had. Most companies I worked for in my career were pretty good.

throwawaymal 4y ago

Decisions i made right after graduation was not working for others and no marriage. I spend all on myself and find a date easily for a little money.

annyeonghada 4y ago
This is the way. The social contract is broken, we are left with hedonism and distraction. I love it.

ianai 4y ago

In lieu of any particular review I’m submitting the Wikipedia page. I was unemployed for most of the Great Recession and can empathize with much of this book. I also just remember the “tragedy of my twenties” realizing society had basically no interest in me. Despite a math degree and IT/programming experience. Then the myriad people I’ve interacted with in the last decade plus who are in this situation. Luckily I now have good paying career. But I fear a society that leaves so many cold.

fullshark 4y ago
Society (meaning gov't programs) doesn't care about you beyond your economic output. We offshored countless unskilled labor jobs that men would traditionally take in America and told them they needed to take out crippling loans in order to get knowledge worker skills that our industry is working overtime to make obsolete within 5-10 years anyway. Many just are giving up, they don't see an opportunity here, they just are going to play video games, take drugs, and accomplish nothing with their lives.
- ianai 4y ago
  Actually, society varies. But social contract theory does point out that the contract goes both ways. And that society works, in the interest of self sustenance, by making the individual lives better than they would be outside of society. Otherwise a society won’t last long or diminish with time. Progress could be as simple as introducing or better funding employment programs. It’d clearly really help if there was some clearinghouse type organization informing people about labor market opportunities based on the individual characteristics. The clearinghouse could seek information directly from employers as to preferences/priorities/etc. But also some people just cannot function in society without some kind of back support. It can’t be a social optimization to leave such people to homelessness.
  - nradov 4y ago
    The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes data on current and predicted future labor market opportunities. https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/occupations-most-job-growth.htm https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/occupations-most-job-growth.h...

cs702 4y ago

Many men who would have done well as labor or middle management in, say, 20th century factories, now find themselves the victims of a rapidly changing, ever-more-concentrated, ever-more-automated global capitalist economy that has less and less need for them. And to them it feels as if no one cares about them. To riff on Churchill[a]: Capitalism is the worst economic system ever invented... except for all others that have been tried from time to time. It's ruthless. There may be a better system... but it hasn't been invented yet. For now, we must figure out how to make this horrible system -- capitalism -- be less horrible, including for all those men who now find themselves marginalized by it. If we blindly let AI-powered software "eat the world" unfettered, without humane constraints, we'd only see greater concentration of economic and political power going forward, which would likely end up in some kind of really ugly societal breakdown. -- [a] https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form-of-government/ https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form... EDITS: Many, necessary for more accurately articulating my thoughts.

bobkazamakis 4y ago
"deaths because of communism are entirely because of communism, but deaths because of capitalism are because you didn't pull your bootstraps hard enough"
- cs702 4y ago
  Yes, capitalism on its own, without any kind of social and individual-rights safety net, is ruthlessly cruel. "The worst."
- sschueller 4y ago
  Capitalism wants you to think it's your fault but when you get sick from poisoned food and water but it's entirely the fault of the greedy capitalist that put profits over all. Sure that in true capitalism the bad actors go out of business but how many die before that happens? What do I care if people die because my actions today in 100 years, I won't be around to have to face the consequences... /s
  - 4y ago

afavour 4y ago

I'm very far from a red-pilled anti-feminist but I do think this is a hugely overlooked problem. Perhaps too much of an aside but I was lucky enough to be able to take an extended parental leave when my child was born, being a "stay at home dad" for the best part of a year. It was incredibly hard work, incredibly rewarding but also a real eye opener at how society still doesn't know what to do with a full-time parent that isn't a woman. Meetups are still called "New Mums Groups", you get shifty looks at playgrounds, playspaces etc., endless questions about what it is that you do. Even the people trying to be positive end up being somewhat patronising ("oh are you babysitting today!"). Anyway, point is, true equality would mean that it's absolutely fine for a man to stay at home and raise a family while the woman is the breadwinner. We're not there and that hurts both men and women.

javajosh 4y ago
The fact that you need to apologize and explain why you care about issues that might affect men is telling in and of itself. The American Zeitgeist around gender issues is distorted to dehumanize men and alienate anyone who even dares to recognize this fact. I'm a pretty hardcore liberal and I I'm totally astonished on a daily basis at the hate in vitriol directed at men that go without comment, let alone castigation that it deserves. As for the rest of your post, absolutely. I love being a dad and it's a shame that our society doesn't seem to care much about father's apart from being a provider of money. Every man should be aware that if things go south and their marriage that their children could be taken away from them and they will be vilified if they try to get them back. You will not get sympathy from your friends or family or from the public at large. He will be fighting the tide.
- afavour 4y ago
  > The American Zeitgeist around gender issues is distorted to dehumanize men and alienate anyone who even dares to recognize this fact. I'm conflicted about that. Not denying that what you've said is true but I specifically chose the term "red pilled" because there are huge toxic (predominantly online) communities that are openly misogynistic. e.g. in theory I'd like and participate in the "men's rights" subreddit, in reality it's a pit of toxicity. Some of the frustration there is justified (family law definitely seems biased against fathers) but the result is not positive. I'd also add: a lot of this societal pressure against men being accepted as stay at home parents comes from men.

adolph 4y ago

In the transition to a post-scarcity world it may be that this crisis represents a transition in which people's mental wellbeing is less moored to earnings and oriented more toward value.

jnmandal 4y ago
Are you implying we are approaching a post-scarcity world now?
- verdverm 4y ago
  we are not getting further away, closer, so this would be "approaching" GP may be more referring to the reduction in need for physical labor based jobs as robotics and automation increase, more than "post-scarcity," a "post-labor-scarcity" should arrive beforehand But to GP's point, transitions take a long time and we are already seeing the early changes. It's not like it has not started
- zackmorris 4y ago
  Dunno about the parent, but for me, post-scarcity means that struggle exists for synthetic reasons that aren't due to resource constraints. For example, billionaires running 3 companies (poorly) is an indicator that they could stand to pay higher taxes so the rest of us don't have to pay their share. Oil companies with a combined worth of trillions of dollars would do just fine without their subsidies when we already have cars like Aptera and Lightyear 0 getting over 40 miles of range per day on solar alone. Factory farming has not prevented us paying $5+ for a dozen eggs. And so on. By these kinds of metrics, I would say that we passed into post-scarcity sometime between the late 60s and the rise of Reaganomics in the early 80s. Certainly by 1990 with the fall of the USSR. Everything since, and especially pivotal events like the Dot Bomb, 9/11 and the Housing Bubble popping, were due to the post-truth reality that filled the void left by scarcity. This was all fairly obvious by the time The Matrix and Fight Club came out in 1999. Similar movies like In Time are practically documentaries now IMHO.
- adolph 4y ago
  As the sibling comments' note, post-scarcity is the direction of progress even if not yet the position. Scarcity's object is a moving target, of course. For example, instead of abject starvation, the primary focus becomes food security. This is progress to be celebrated. At the same time as things like basic foodstuffs are becoming ubiquitously available, there is also a dematerialization of humanity. A prime example are household goods, like phone book, encyclopedia, cookbooks, typewriter, checkbook, phone and answering machine, etc that are made redundant by inexpensive compute and connectivity. In addition to the basics being non-scarce the highest intellectual achievements of the world are simultaneously delivered in better quality for less than ever. Are we approaching a post-scarcity world now? Yes and, as always, the future isn't evenly distributed. A society that can afford to hold labor pools un-utilized indicates one that is rich in basic needs. For it to be a crisis that their labor is not required indicates a society poor in imagination.

65 4y ago

Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29633355-men-without-work https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29633355-men-without-wor...

wpietri 4y ago

Since the Wikipedia article is so bare, I'm concerned that this discussion will mainly be a vibes-based shouting match based on the title. In hopes of averting that, some meatier content: A piece from the book's author: https://time.com/4504004/men-without-work/ https://time.com/4504004/men-without-work/ Some reviews and discussions: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2016/09/15/americas-lost-workers-eberstadt-men-without-work/ https://www.nybooks.com/online/2016/09/15/americas-lost-work... https://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/10/11/13176948/labor-force-participation https://www.vox.com/new-money/2016/10/11/13176948/labor-forc... https://archive.ph/20170311160320/https://www.ft.com/content/eb0c4aa4-80b5-11e6-8e50-8ec15fb462f4 https://archive.ph/20170311160320/https://www.ft.com/content...

dang 4y ago
Great, I've changed from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_Without_Work_(book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_Without_Work_(book) to that first article. Thanks! Wikipedia submissions are good when there isn't a substantive article out there, but not good when they're just a generic summary of what can be explored more specifically in other places. Past explanations about this: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20wikipedia%20submission&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

tejohnso 4y ago

> Statistically, the labor force involvement for men twenty and older fell from 86% to 68% between 1948 and 2015 So what are they doing instead? How are they surviving?

goldenchrome 4y ago
They’re NEETs. Likely live with their parents. May sell odd things here and there to make a buck. Likely invested in cryptos which until recently was enough to get by. Often getting some government gibs like unemployment or disability benefits. American society doesn’t know how to use low skilled men so we keep ‘em fed and put them to the side.
- giantg2 4y ago
  Probably a lot of FIRE too, if I remember right. Edit: Why disagree?
- TylerLives 4y ago
  >American society doesn’t know how to use low skilled men What's the solution though? I can think of 3: 1) Bullshit jobs (i.e. fake jobs or real jobs that exist only to support fake jobs. This is the current answer) 2) Universal Basic Income - Doesn't solve the problem of giving people meaningful work, but gives them some freedom to discover/create their own solutions 3) Artificially making life more difficult - For example, banning furniture companies that are too good at their job. Want new furniture? Here are some tools, go and make it. Maybe find some friends to help you with it too. This solution would solve the problem, but it would be extremely unpopular and would likely need to be enforced globally, or people would just go to a place where they can buy furniture cheaply. First solution will likely continue to be the most popular one. I hope the second solution continues to gain popularity, maybe not directly as UBI, but something similar. Third solution is extremely unlikely, it's more of a thought experiment to realize how solving real problems gives us meaning and creates bonds among people. Kaczynski writes about this when he writes about three groups of human drives.
  - 9530jh9054ven 4y ago

asperous 4y ago

I wrote the original wikipedia article for this! I haven't read the book just thought it was notable. It was a little tough getting past the editors (the section referencing all those news articles they made me put in to reach notability). I also got called a shill for the publisher.

patorjk 4y ago
I don't understand why some people feel the need to be so snarky in their summary messages: > I'll bet this clown got paid to write this article and they did a poor job of it, too. It's really turned me off from contributing. Years ago I got into a spat where someone didn't like something I added to an article and said my sources weren't valid since they were blog posts. I went and found a mainstream magazine article on the topic and they still balked - but eventually relented since they really didn't have a leg to stand on. They silently removed the addition a few months later. However, at that point I was over it and didn't care. The fact eventually made it back into the article a few years later when someone else added it in.
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  In practice Wikipedia is often an effortocracy, not the meritocracy it wants to be.

blahblah1234567 4y ago

I think "Men Without Work" is a euphemism. The problem is: - Men without Skills in-demand-- skills which are at least somewhat fulfilling & interesting to those men. Solution: Research labor data for careers in high demand, then cross reference those careers with skills a person is interested in. Then identify resources & a roadmap for learning those skills. And sit down, and put the time in to learn & apply those skills at a novice to intermediate level. - Men who refuse to work. Part of why they refuse to work is that they might not recognize the solution above: to build skills relevant to a career they consider meaningful. This may also be due to a lack of monetary resources to live somewhat comfortably while building those skills (That said, I lived in a tent for months while teaching myself web development). Or they are overburdened by obligations and decided to give up and check out of society (i.e. turn towards homelessness and/or drugs) Caveat: I know some folks who call themselves "poor folks". The reality is that their problem isn't that they're poor. Their problem is that they refuse to put together a well formatted resume, apply to jobs, and accept that they may have to start at the bottom of the career ladder. (And/or build new skills) The concept of "Work" is but one link on a dependency chain: Study -> Skills -> Productivity -> Work -> Career -> Build resources

Damogran6 4y ago
Unspecified in all of this is: Society at large needs less labor to function. What happens when all of the production is automated to the point we don't NEED 'Men to work'? What do we do with them? What mischief do they get into when they have idle hands?
- giantg2 4y ago
  I mostly agree. I feel like some people will gravitate back towards self sufficient activities. There are a lot of people on this site doing stuff like building their own furniture, gardening, etc. Of course I do think there will be a subset that use their time for more destructive things, as happens even now.
  - ponow 4y ago

wheelerof4te 4y ago

First world problems. When they don't exist, you invent them. EDIT: Young people who can work but don't surely have a reason why they don't work. Some are happy just freeloading and enjoying life on someone else's expense (often their parents). Others have a solid income on the side, just doing freelance stuff. There are also those who have saved some money while working part-time. Now they just want to live their life before comitting to full time work.

Clent 4y ago

Brute force is no longer useful to our economy. We continue to replace male labor with machines. The last vestige is the trades, mostly in the construction industry. It's only a matter of time until the technology industry gets around to disrupting male labor out of the trades.

tonmoy 4y ago

As I can’t find the book or the data it references, can someone more knowledgeable comment on the validity (and interpretation) of the data?

warinukraine 4y ago

What a coincidence, just yesterday I watched his interview with the Hoover Institution. It's on youtube.

vedran 4y ago

The book "Boys Adrift: The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Unmotivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men" by Leonard Sax goes into a lot of detail behind some of the underlying problems causing this.

takoid 4y ago
For anyone else wondering what the five factors are: > Sax’s research found that the following five factors attribute to our society of underachieving, disengaged boys: (1) changes at school; (2) video games; (3) medications for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD); (4) endocrine disruptors; and (5) the revenge of the forsaken gods. From this Amazon review which also goes into further detail: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2UQS7MYS7I5JI/ https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R2UQS7MYS7I5JI/
- gota 4y ago
  Im sorry, but item (5) means less than nothing without context. Can someone who read it please add some? I'll go looking for it & will edit this (if I make it in time, before the editing window closes)
  - takoid 4y ago
    Also from the linked review: > In Dr. Sax’s final factor “the revenge of the forsaken gods,” he identified in leading to a generation of unmotivated, disengaged boys and men. Boys need strong male remodels to emulate and look-up to. Dr. Sax stressing that gender does matter because “boys and girls differ with respect to risk factors for social pathology” (p. 178).

MrMember 4y ago

60% of college graduates are women and the gap widens every year. It's going to get a lot worse before (if) it gets better.

dudul 4y ago
Some gaps matter more than others /s

lordfrito 4y ago

My 2c. Society doesn't care about young men. They're pretty much left to fend for themselves. Hopefully they have a good family structure, and a few good male friends. Without that they're toally adrift. I learned this lesson when I got a flat tire driving across two states when I was 20. No one is willing to help. I guarantee a 20 yo woman would have no problem flagging down help, heck people would stop to help without being asked. I'm 51 now, and I understand why more and more men are checking out. The grind isn't worth it. There's a reward system in play here, you grind at life and are rewarded. Grind in school and you graduate. Grind more and you get a degree. Grind more and you get a family and career and some big toys. It seems that the amount of grinding men have to do is increasing, and the net rewards society bestows seem to be decreasing. I won't get into a shouting match on what the problems men experience are, you can fill in the blanks with your own experiences and biases, but all the men I know seem to agree that there seems to be less of an upside to sacrificing for the greater good than there used to be. As a middle aged man strangers I meet expect the worst from me, why should I try? As an alternative you can spend your hours grinding away at video games and leveling up. And the games are getting better every year. It seems to me that many young men are finding leveling up in games is simply more rewarding than leveling up in real life. I wish it weren't so, but here we are. Historically speaking, civilization is built and defended largely on the backs of young men. When they check out, it can't be a net good for the trajectory of society. Or maybe this is a win for feminism? Women finally have work equality and so men don't have to work as hard anymore. I don't have answers. But the trend has been clear for a long while.

Karawebnetwork 4y ago
> Or maybe this is a win for feminism? I understand this is a passing remark, but I want to answer the question anyway. Feminism is not about making men's lives more difficult or about cheering when men struggle. Most feminists believe that gender equality can benefit everyone, including men, by creating a more just society. It is not about oppression or mistreatment of any group, not of even men. Men supporting and helping other men benefits feminism and women by challenging traditional gender roles and expectations. In a lot of countries, the cultural norm is for men to be strong, independent and self-sufficient and not to seek help or support from others, especially other men. This creates a culture of toxic masculinity (not all masculinity is toxic, only the toxic kind is problematic). In such a culture men are expected to repress their feelings, hide their vulnerability, and not seek support when they need it, etc. Often, women are expected to fit under the exact opposite (not being allowed to stand alone, expected to be vulnerable and emotional, etc.) as if we were sharing a limited pie and not the potentialy unlimited social world we live in. This is harmful to people of all gender. Breaking down traditional gender roles and expectations and supporting and helping each other is good for everyone. This can also help reduce the stigma and shame that may be associated with men seeking help or support and encourage more men to seek the help and support they need. This in turn can help create a more equitable and just society for all, which is one of the main goals of feminism. I wish the men in my live all had the same kind of emotionally vulnerable relationships I have with the women in my life. I can't begin to imagine how hard and lonely it can be to live in a world that prevent you from connecting freely with others. In my book, anything that makes life harder for men is a loss for feminism.

slibhb 4y ago

[flagged]

yterdy 4y ago
Until one of them walks into your grocery store or your child's classroom and unloads a few clips out of his AR-15, I would hazard to guess. That's the more extreme outcome, of course. You also have, "heavily influencing a subculture that stews in a semi-justified atmosphere of victimization until mass media figures out how commodify it, and you wake up a decade later to find that pop culture has become dominated by spandex and CG energy blasts." Never ascribe to personal choice, without support, what is evidently a systemic issue. "We" could have chosen to pay these people to pursue their creative or intellectual interests, or to physically improve their communities or other places-in-need - a new deal, of sorts.
- slibhb 4y ago
  I think it's personal choice and in many cases a rational one. Men who don't want to start families and have no particular ambition really have no reason to work.
  - yterdy 4y ago
    Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man. (That said, it's one that you didn't bother to support, so I'll just tap my previous reply and be on my way.)

Balgair 4y ago

Aside: Since there is a lot of commentary about 'being a real man' here, I thought I'd drop two links that really helped out those close to me 'snip the apron strings'. https://www.artofmanliness.com/ https://www.artofmanliness.com/ https://www.scouting.org/ https://www.scouting.org/