8 ms·

The Monks in the Casino

103 points by pavel_lishin 1y ago

pavel_lishin 1y ago
> I’ve been thinking recently about these guys who are dating less, socializing less, and leaving their home less, while filling their media with more porn and betting parlays. They seem to prefer the financial discomfort of losing a bet to the social anxiety of being rejected on a date. They find intimacy scary and gambling exciting. They furnish their rooms like high-tech monasteries and gravitate toward media that works like a slot machine. > These young men seem to me like modern ascetics who find themselves somehow trapped on the betting floor of the economy. They are like monks, yes. But more than that: They are monks in a casino. Risk-aversion in the social sphere has combined with their risk-chasing in the market, and it’s created a genuinely berserk modern life script. This seems like a bad take. There's no preference there, these people have crippling addictions, it's a form of mental illness. It's like saying schizophrenics prefer talking to voices than having a home, or that people who are clinically depressed prefer napping over going to work.
ryandv 1y ago
You can listen to what men are saying, or continue to suppress and label their speech as "bad faith" or otherwise. When men are not heard they simply seek other audiences and other avenues. It is the incentive structures that will tell them where to go.
- btilly 1y ago
  This message is never going to go over well among those that the young men are reacting against. The fact that they don't get listened to causes them to double down into extremism. Our current levels of extremism have put us in danger of sliding into becoming a totalitarian state. That risk will not lessen unless both sides recognize that extremism itself is the danger. Underneath the anger, angry people are often hurt people. Labeling them enemies and hurting them further certainly feels good in the moment. But in the long run it is counterproductive.
  - ryandv 1y ago
    You are right of course, but given the subject matter I thought it was worth a try. It turned out not to be.
- immibis 1y ago
  When I grew up, my dad always yelled at me every day before school about how climate change is my fault because of my white male privilege and I need to chow down ze bugs or I'm a racist. That didn't happen. I just made that up. Was that also your first instinct upon reading it - that I made it up? But I see men saying things like this happened to them, and that is my first instinct: it didn't happen and they made it up. Am I supposed to stop doing that? Am I supposed to believe them? Listening to real problems is good - are you saying I should listen to obvious trolls as well? That is what "bad faith" means - it's a euphemism for "obviously trolling". Perhaps you even think I'm lying when I say I see people saying things like this online - but if that's the case, that means you're part of the same problem you cite, since you're not listening what I'm saying. Can you propose a solution to all this?
  - ryandv 1y ago
    Thanks for sharing your thoughts. "<3"
- kjkjadksj 1y ago
  What exactly are people not hearing? Say the quiet part out loud already. It is the fact they can no longer openly shit on women and minorities and homosexuals and trans people that they have issues with. The fact that being white and having a white name are not enough to be granted a favorable job. That is all that is changing these days. Now consider what it says about the men who are kicking and screaming about this.
  - ryandv 1y ago
    > What exactly are people not hearing? Say the quiet part out loud already. I thought I was fairly explicit right here, in this comment [0]. Shall I continue and post my 93 Theses? There are no hidden messages here. If you think there are I suggest you seek a licensed psychiatrist. > It is the fact they can no longer openly shit on women and minorities and homosexuals and trans people that they have issues with. On the contrary - browsing through my comment history will reveal that I openly shit on women, homosexuals, trans people, people I have issues with, and more. > The fact that being white and having a white name are not enough to be granted a favorable job. Not sure what this has to do with anything - I am an ethnic minority, but thank you for assuming my race and ethnicity. I invite you to assume my sex and gender next. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45917800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45917800
  - throwawaypath 1y ago
    What exactly are people not hearing? Say the quiet part out loud already. It is the fact they can no longer openly shit on men and majorities and heterosexuals and normal people that they have issues with. The fact that being non-white and having a non-white name are not enough to be granted a favorable job. That is all that is changing these days. Now consider what it says about the women who are kicking and screaming about this.
myrmidon 1y ago
An interesting take, but I think it goes a bit too far; you don't need to be a porn or gambling addict for increasingly available screen-based entertainment/interaction to "leech" time and motivation that you would otherwise spend with humans instead. I'd be hesitant with value judgements, but this is most certainly going to affect our society massively (from decreased reproduction rates alone if nothing else). I feel there must have been smaller similar trends in the past with easily obtainable written entertainment (books).
csours 1y ago
I feel like the internet/social media has taken over the communication paradigm, and there are conversations that simply cannot and do not take place on social media in any real depth. Deep communication between parties needs those parties to allow for the possibility of recontextualization - telling another story. If I say that somesuch social movement is causing problems, then people in that social movement will feel attacked. Even bringing up somesuch social movement is a great way to increase vitriol on social media. It just makes people angry because people already feel justified in their anger at the demons on the 'other side' It feels there there are too many things that are 'Agree with me 100% or we have to fight'. I feel like the true luxury good of the future is human attention, and specifically careful emotional validation.
- _sr6i 1y ago
  Longtime lurker, first time poster. I completely agree with you. Human beings need additional context when interacting with one another that isn't just some text on a screen. You can't learn everything about a person that way and while you can somewhat connect with them, there's levels there you're missing out on not being face to face. There's also the matter that some people don't come across well online either, can't get their full personhood through the screen... I think we all owe each other some grace for our humanity and how we deal with our problems. When we can at least see them even when we don't know how resolve them.
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago
  > It feels there there are too many things that are 'Agree with me 100% or we have to fight'. For this to be a threat, you have to assume that the other side is not willing to fight. :-)
telotortium 1y ago
I don't think I would exactly call these men "monks". It has been pretty normal throughout history for a fairly large proportion of men, especially those lower down the economic ladder, to be permanently single or not marry until pretty late in life. These days, they don't have to work as much to avoid complete destitution or starvation, they're not as likely to die young, and they've largely replaced visiting cheap prostitutes with gooning, but otherwise this is not any unprecedented phenomenon. It does mean that the economic growth that allowed most men to be a plausible marriage partner in the mid-20th century no longer obtains, which is a bad thing, despite the small comfort of consumer goods being cheap enough to alleviate some of this pain.
- topadmin 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - otikik 1y ago
    Whaaaat.
  - beedeebeedee 1y ago
    Ehhh- if these men really wanted companionship, they could find it. It only takes a little social courage, and accepting others (as they wish to be accepted). They are not being canceled because they don’t play by women’s rules. The fact is, these men are deeply confused and push away as they pull in. My suggestion would be to lean into monasticism and not just use the term ‘monk’ as a euphemism for not having female relationships. I don’t think anyone should be a monk long-term, but use it as a transitional period to examine and explore why they are so confused and come to terms with it. Blaming women for their problems just makes it intractable because their problem is within themselves
    - topadmin 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - 1y ago
btilly 1y ago
The experience of young men is that they have grown up in a world where they've consistently been told that everything is their fault because they have male privilege. Doubly so if the men have white or Asian ancestry. Reactions to this vary. The ones described in the article have sought out addictions to escape this reality. Many others, including my son, have essentially said, "Well if this side rejects me, I'll go to the other side." The result is a rapid rise in conservatism, as documented in polls. See https://www.realclearpolling.com/stories/analysis/young-americans-especially-men-fuel-gop-gains https://www.realclearpolling.com/stories/analysis/young-amer... for an example. It is very easy, particularly for those who are very progressive, to blame the men themselves for these reactions. But it is a natural overreaction to the systematic rejection to a lifetime of being told that they are the problem. "You think I'm the problem? I'll show YOU what it looks like if I BECOME the problem!" I firmly believe that these problematic behaviors and politics would be greatly softened if our society showed more empathy to these struggling men. But in our polarized society, their choices and beliefs label them as the enemy. Which causes some to double down into toxic extremism like siding with incels, or MGTOW. Historically when a pendulum swings one way, eventually it swings back. But I'm having trouble how we're going to swing back, when both sides have swung to and then doubled down on polarization.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- immibis 1y ago
  > they've consistently been told that everything is their fault because they have male privilege. This is not me. This is not anyone I know. This is not anyone I've ever known. However, this is what I see people say online about other people who they've never met. Did you grow up consistently being told that every single thing is your fault because you have male privilege, or are you repeating something you read online or in the media?
  - ryandv 1y ago
    This sentiment seems to be especially common with white progressive women in urban metropolitan areas and their (so-called) "allies." It is the first setting in which I encountered these ideas being regularly and shamelessly circulated. As a visible and ethnic minority I did not encounter such rhetoric growing up in predominantly immigrant socially conservative suburban environments.
potbelly83 1y ago
My criticism with this article is that the author seems to lump all time alone behavior into the 'bad' category. What about the guys spending time alone to work on their guitar solo, dive deeper into a branch of AI math, or how about spending hours reading plato?
- sidewndr46 1y ago
  I think you meant "guitar solo". I too was surprised by the author's tendency to suggest that alone time is inherently bad. If you aren't particularly interested in the society you live in, there is nothing wrong with spending time alone. I don't really suggest you take up gambling, smoking, or drinking to pass the time. But spending time alone is just fine.
  - potbelly83 1y ago
    Fixed typo! Yeah, alone time is inherently a male thing, and is probably what drove a lot of the historical breakthroughs in the past. This need to always be socializing is a very feminine construct and probably does more damage in the long run than people realize (i.e. to deep breakthroughs, case in point how science has now become a popularity game rather than a search for the truth). A more nuanced article would have delved deeper into the types of alone behavior that are beneficial vs those that are destructive.
  - pavel_lishin 1y ago
    Even if you are interested in the society, solitude isn't an inherently negative thing.
Mistletoe 1y ago
That party graph is unholy. I live my life to reverse it and I really think one of the only meanings of life is just to party and have fun. I want the rest of my life to be filled with parties, both hosting them and attending them. If you can’t tell, I love parties. Discovering that later in life was really a lightbulb moment. Humans were meant for parties. That’s what we were doing around the fire every night with our friends and family and it is just gone now. The horrible mental health and depression you see is from that. We haven’t evolved to not need that and I hope we never do.
- cortesoft 1y ago
  This is funny because I feel the complete opposite. I am in my mid-40s now, and I go to maybe one 'party' a month, usually at a family friend's house for a pool party or a dinner. When I was younger, I thought I was SUPPOSED to want to party, so I went out with friends many nights a week. Sometimes I would have fun, but I would always dread it. I hate the noise, the crowded feeling, bumping into other people, trying to make small talk with people I was not that interested in talking to. I much preferred being home by myself, playing games or working on hobby projects. I remember in college I loved when I was too young to go to the bars; we would pre-party at our apartment and I would enjoy it for an hour or two, and then they would leave for the bars and I would stay home and do my own thing. It was perfect. I just thought I was supposed to like parties and going out. Then I got older, and I met my now-wife at work. On one of our first dates, we were going to pick up her cousin from a bar. We get there, and it is HAPPENING. Loud music, people dancing, people waiting in line to get in. It looked miserable to me, but I was getting ready to act like I enjoyed it... and then I look over to my future wife and she sighs and says "that looks awful". I knew right there she was the woman for me. We have been married for over 10 years now, and we still hate going out to loud events. We don't mind socializing in smaller groups, but we are comfortable that we don't like going to loud bars or clubs or big parties. We like staying home with the kids, quietly playing games or reading. We have also learned, through having our kids diagnosed and then ourselves, that we are both on the autism spectrum. We are no longer ashamed of who we are, and don't pretend we are the same as everyone else. I think people are different, and need different things. We can't assume that what we need will work for everyone else.
kitsune1 1y ago
[dead]
Dilettante_ 1y ago
Risk-aversion in the social sphere has combined with their risk-chasing in the market I'd argue that it's a little different: The perceived risk/reward ratio of social interaction has simply fallen so low that it seems like even more of a fool's game than gambling. The skinner box gives unpredictable rewards, but at the same time the user can be certain that a reward will come. Whereas (for those poor unfortunate souls), the expected reward for putting themselves out there is zero, zilch, nada. That's what it means to be hopeless.
some_furry 1y ago
There are a lot of things I dislike about this article. "Porn addiction" is a paleologism that caused a lot of harm so the scientific community has largely abandoned it. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/201808/science-stopped-believing-in-porn-addiction-you-should-too https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/2018... It's also weird to have friends who have spent time in actual monasteries and then read an article that calls people suffering from compulsive behaviors "monks". They seem awfully attached to the vices of the modern life to be anything remotely monk-like to me.
Slow_Hand 1y ago
I indirectly know one or two people who match this lonely home gambling archetype (friends of a friend) and every day I feel gratitude that I am (for the most part) socially well-adjusted and supported. The handful of men like this who I've spoken to I find to be pretty self-aware and somewhat self-loathing. I often find that what they need is someone who can listen to them, give them some tactful encouragement, and occasionally help them find a strategy that will help them to overcome the troubles that they're facing. Be that therapy or a debtors anonymous meeting. It's a challenging world that is often overwhelming to manage by yourself. It's easy to feel dis-empowered when you don't have a solid social circle that you can lean on, or who can help to re-direct your bad tendencies. Helping folks find their own social group can be immensely helpful for people who are trying to course correct.
spankibalt 1y ago
I don't see a problem here. And as long as they're hurting nobody IDGAF. > "The experience of young men is that they have grown up in a world where they've consistently been told that everything is their fault because they have male privilege." Men had and have privilege, that's a simple sociological and sociohistorical fact. That, because of that fact, "everything is their [i. e. men's] fault" is a reductio ad absurdum. > "'You think I'm the problem? I'll show YOU what it looks like if I BECOME the problem!'" Ah, the old classic: threats and blackmail. Trad dudes just don't get, do they? After hundreds, if not thousands, of years of "I'll show YOU!1!!", that song and dance is stale. People become more empowered individually, with more individual freedom(s). So they are less inclined to settle for bad compromises.
- neutronicus 1y ago
  The negative externalities of gambling are pretty well-chronicled.
_23sd 1y ago
The way columns like this work is that the author pretends to have a rational basis for their claims that some feature of the masses' private behavior they don't like is going to destroy society, the trick being that they set the starting point of human civilization as portrayed in their narratives and on their charts at around 1950 (or even later in this example, besides the throwaway Max Weber quote from which the title is derived). This ensures that the audience can comfortably ignore the existence of previous degenerate sorts of trends, which have been sanitized by living generations' nostalgia for those cultural moments. Then, after establishing the existence of a serious threat, they try to sell the audience on their preferred solution. Back when we said "Christian" instead of "pro-social", the demand was often temperance, or sometimes a religious reform that that either seems obvious or blasphemous to modern readers. Today the sorts of people who read columnists have reverence for a political ideology instead of a god, so aside from the largely unchanged admonitions against vice, you get arguments that too much construction regulation hollows out our moral virtues. I don't really mind the admonitions against vice (though I find them uninteresting), but the government passing laws in an attempt to fix our morals has a terrible track record. We ought to stick to cold rationality whenever possible.

103 points by pavel_lishin 1y ago

> I’ve been thinking recently about these guys who are dating less, socializing less, and leaving their home less, while filling their media with more porn and betting parlays. They seem to prefer the financial discomfort of losing a bet to the social anxiety of being rejected on a date. They find intimacy scary and gambling exciting. They furnish their rooms like high-tech monasteries and gravitate toward media that works like a slot machine. > These young men seem to me like modern ascetics who find themselves somehow trapped on the betting floor of the economy. They are like monks, yes. But more than that: They are monks in a casino. Risk-aversion in the social sphere has combined with their risk-chasing in the market, and it’s created a genuinely berserk modern life script. This seems like a bad take. There's no preference there, these people have crippling addictions, it's a form of mental illness. It's like saying schizophrenics prefer talking to voices than having a home, or that people who are clinically depressed prefer napping over going to work.

ryandv 1y ago

You can listen to what men are saying, or continue to suppress and label their speech as "bad faith" or otherwise. When men are not heard they simply seek other audiences and other avenues. It is the incentive structures that will tell them where to go.

btilly 1y ago
This message is never going to go over well among those that the young men are reacting against. The fact that they don't get listened to causes them to double down into extremism. Our current levels of extremism have put us in danger of sliding into becoming a totalitarian state. That risk will not lessen unless both sides recognize that extremism itself is the danger. Underneath the anger, angry people are often hurt people. Labeling them enemies and hurting them further certainly feels good in the moment. But in the long run it is counterproductive.
- ryandv 1y ago
  You are right of course, but given the subject matter I thought it was worth a try. It turned out not to be.
immibis 1y ago
When I grew up, my dad always yelled at me every day before school about how climate change is my fault because of my white male privilege and I need to chow down ze bugs or I'm a racist. That didn't happen. I just made that up. Was that also your first instinct upon reading it - that I made it up? But I see men saying things like this happened to them, and that is my first instinct: it didn't happen and they made it up. Am I supposed to stop doing that? Am I supposed to believe them? Listening to real problems is good - are you saying I should listen to obvious trolls as well? That is what "bad faith" means - it's a euphemism for "obviously trolling". Perhaps you even think I'm lying when I say I see people saying things like this online - but if that's the case, that means you're part of the same problem you cite, since you're not listening what I'm saying. Can you propose a solution to all this?
- ryandv 1y ago
  Thanks for sharing your thoughts. "<3"
kjkjadksj 1y ago
What exactly are people not hearing? Say the quiet part out loud already. It is the fact they can no longer openly shit on women and minorities and homosexuals and trans people that they have issues with. The fact that being white and having a white name are not enough to be granted a favorable job. That is all that is changing these days. Now consider what it says about the men who are kicking and screaming about this.
- ryandv 1y ago
  > What exactly are people not hearing? Say the quiet part out loud already. I thought I was fairly explicit right here, in this comment [0]. Shall I continue and post my 93 Theses? There are no hidden messages here. If you think there are I suggest you seek a licensed psychiatrist. > It is the fact they can no longer openly shit on women and minorities and homosexuals and trans people that they have issues with. On the contrary - browsing through my comment history will reveal that I openly shit on women, homosexuals, trans people, people I have issues with, and more. > The fact that being white and having a white name are not enough to be granted a favorable job. Not sure what this has to do with anything - I am an ethnic minority, but thank you for assuming my race and ethnicity. I invite you to assume my sex and gender next. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45917800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45917800
- throwawaypath 1y ago
  What exactly are people not hearing? Say the quiet part out loud already. It is the fact they can no longer openly shit on men and majorities and heterosexuals and normal people that they have issues with. The fact that being non-white and having a non-white name are not enough to be granted a favorable job. That is all that is changing these days. Now consider what it says about the women who are kicking and screaming about this.

myrmidon 1y ago

An interesting take, but I think it goes a bit too far; you don't need to be a porn or gambling addict for increasingly available screen-based entertainment/interaction to "leech" time and motivation that you would otherwise spend with humans instead. I'd be hesitant with value judgements, but this is most certainly going to affect our society massively (from decreased reproduction rates alone if nothing else). I feel there must have been smaller similar trends in the past with easily obtainable written entertainment (books).

csours 1y ago

I feel like the internet/social media has taken over the communication paradigm, and there are conversations that simply cannot and do not take place on social media in any real depth. Deep communication between parties needs those parties to allow for the possibility of recontextualization - telling another story. If I say that somesuch social movement is causing problems, then people in that social movement will feel attacked. Even bringing up somesuch social movement is a great way to increase vitriol on social media. It just makes people angry because people already feel justified in their anger at the demons on the 'other side' It feels there there are too many things that are 'Agree with me 100% or we have to fight'. I feel like the true luxury good of the future is human attention, and specifically careful emotional validation.

_sr6i 1y ago
Longtime lurker, first time poster. I completely agree with you. Human beings need additional context when interacting with one another that isn't just some text on a screen. You can't learn everything about a person that way and while you can somewhat connect with them, there's levels there you're missing out on not being face to face. There's also the matter that some people don't come across well online either, can't get their full personhood through the screen... I think we all owe each other some grace for our humanity and how we deal with our problems. When we can at least see them even when we don't know how resolve them.
aleph_minus_one 1y ago
> It feels there there are too many things that are 'Agree with me 100% or we have to fight'. For this to be a threat, you have to assume that the other side is not willing to fight. :-)

telotortium 1y ago

I don't think I would exactly call these men "monks". It has been pretty normal throughout history for a fairly large proportion of men, especially those lower down the economic ladder, to be permanently single or not marry until pretty late in life. These days, they don't have to work as much to avoid complete destitution or starvation, they're not as likely to die young, and they've largely replaced visiting cheap prostitutes with gooning, but otherwise this is not any unprecedented phenomenon. It does mean that the economic growth that allowed most men to be a plausible marriage partner in the mid-20th century no longer obtains, which is a bad thing, despite the small comfort of consumer goods being cheap enough to alleviate some of this pain.

topadmin 1y ago
[flagged]
- otikik 1y ago
  Whaaaat.
- beedeebeedee 1y ago
  Ehhh- if these men really wanted companionship, they could find it. It only takes a little social courage, and accepting others (as they wish to be accepted). They are not being canceled because they don’t play by women’s rules. The fact is, these men are deeply confused and push away as they pull in. My suggestion would be to lean into monasticism and not just use the term ‘monk’ as a euphemism for not having female relationships. I don’t think anyone should be a monk long-term, but use it as a transitional period to examine and explore why they are so confused and come to terms with it. Blaming women for their problems just makes it intractable because their problem is within themselves
  - topadmin 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - 1y ago

btilly 1y ago

The experience of young men is that they have grown up in a world where they've consistently been told that everything is their fault because they have male privilege. Doubly so if the men have white or Asian ancestry. Reactions to this vary. The ones described in the article have sought out addictions to escape this reality. Many others, including my son, have essentially said, "Well if this side rejects me, I'll go to the other side." The result is a rapid rise in conservatism, as documented in polls. See https://www.realclearpolling.com/stories/analysis/young-americans-especially-men-fuel-gop-gains https://www.realclearpolling.com/stories/analysis/young-amer... for an example. It is very easy, particularly for those who are very progressive, to blame the men themselves for these reactions. But it is a natural overreaction to the systematic rejection to a lifetime of being told that they are the problem. "You think I'm the problem? I'll show YOU what it looks like if I BECOME the problem!" I firmly believe that these problematic behaviors and politics would be greatly softened if our society showed more empathy to these struggling men. But in our polarized society, their choices and beliefs label them as the enemy. Which causes some to double down into toxic extremism like siding with incels, or MGTOW. Historically when a pendulum swings one way, eventually it swings back. But I'm having trouble how we're going to swing back, when both sides have swung to and then doubled down on polarization.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
immibis 1y ago
> they've consistently been told that everything is their fault because they have male privilege. This is not me. This is not anyone I know. This is not anyone I've ever known. However, this is what I see people say online about other people who they've never met. Did you grow up consistently being told that every single thing is your fault because you have male privilege, or are you repeating something you read online or in the media?
- ryandv 1y ago
  This sentiment seems to be especially common with white progressive women in urban metropolitan areas and their (so-called) "allies." It is the first setting in which I encountered these ideas being regularly and shamelessly circulated. As a visible and ethnic minority I did not encounter such rhetoric growing up in predominantly immigrant socially conservative suburban environments.

potbelly83 1y ago

My criticism with this article is that the author seems to lump all time alone behavior into the 'bad' category. What about the guys spending time alone to work on their guitar solo, dive deeper into a branch of AI math, or how about spending hours reading plato?

sidewndr46 1y ago
I think you meant "guitar solo". I too was surprised by the author's tendency to suggest that alone time is inherently bad. If you aren't particularly interested in the society you live in, there is nothing wrong with spending time alone. I don't really suggest you take up gambling, smoking, or drinking to pass the time. But spending time alone is just fine.
- potbelly83 1y ago
  Fixed typo! Yeah, alone time is inherently a male thing, and is probably what drove a lot of the historical breakthroughs in the past. This need to always be socializing is a very feminine construct and probably does more damage in the long run than people realize (i.e. to deep breakthroughs, case in point how science has now become a popularity game rather than a search for the truth). A more nuanced article would have delved deeper into the types of alone behavior that are beneficial vs those that are destructive.
- pavel_lishin 1y ago
  Even if you are interested in the society, solitude isn't an inherently negative thing.

Mistletoe 1y ago

That party graph is unholy. I live my life to reverse it and I really think one of the only meanings of life is just to party and have fun. I want the rest of my life to be filled with parties, both hosting them and attending them. If you can’t tell, I love parties. Discovering that later in life was really a lightbulb moment. Humans were meant for parties. That’s what we were doing around the fire every night with our friends and family and it is just gone now. The horrible mental health and depression you see is from that. We haven’t evolved to not need that and I hope we never do.

cortesoft 1y ago
This is funny because I feel the complete opposite. I am in my mid-40s now, and I go to maybe one 'party' a month, usually at a family friend's house for a pool party or a dinner. When I was younger, I thought I was SUPPOSED to want to party, so I went out with friends many nights a week. Sometimes I would have fun, but I would always dread it. I hate the noise, the crowded feeling, bumping into other people, trying to make small talk with people I was not that interested in talking to. I much preferred being home by myself, playing games or working on hobby projects. I remember in college I loved when I was too young to go to the bars; we would pre-party at our apartment and I would enjoy it for an hour or two, and then they would leave for the bars and I would stay home and do my own thing. It was perfect. I just thought I was supposed to like parties and going out. Then I got older, and I met my now-wife at work. On one of our first dates, we were going to pick up her cousin from a bar. We get there, and it is HAPPENING. Loud music, people dancing, people waiting in line to get in. It looked miserable to me, but I was getting ready to act like I enjoyed it... and then I look over to my future wife and she sighs and says "that looks awful". I knew right there she was the woman for me. We have been married for over 10 years now, and we still hate going out to loud events. We don't mind socializing in smaller groups, but we are comfortable that we don't like going to loud bars or clubs or big parties. We like staying home with the kids, quietly playing games or reading. We have also learned, through having our kids diagnosed and then ourselves, that we are both on the autism spectrum. We are no longer ashamed of who we are, and don't pretend we are the same as everyone else. I think people are different, and need different things. We can't assume that what we need will work for everyone else.

kitsune1 1y ago

[dead]

Dilettante_ 1y ago

Risk-aversion in the social sphere has combined with their risk-chasing in the market I'd argue that it's a little different: The perceived risk/reward ratio of social interaction has simply fallen so low that it seems like even more of a fool's game than gambling. The skinner box gives unpredictable rewards, but at the same time the user can be certain that a reward will come. Whereas (for those poor unfortunate souls), the expected reward for putting themselves out there is zero, zilch, nada. That's what it means to be hopeless.

some_furry 1y ago

There are a lot of things I dislike about this article. "Porn addiction" is a paleologism that caused a lot of harm so the scientific community has largely abandoned it. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/201808/science-stopped-believing-in-porn-addiction-you-should-too https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-who-stray/2018... It's also weird to have friends who have spent time in actual monasteries and then read an article that calls people suffering from compulsive behaviors "monks". They seem awfully attached to the vices of the modern life to be anything remotely monk-like to me.

Slow_Hand 1y ago

I indirectly know one or two people who match this lonely home gambling archetype (friends of a friend) and every day I feel gratitude that I am (for the most part) socially well-adjusted and supported. The handful of men like this who I've spoken to I find to be pretty self-aware and somewhat self-loathing. I often find that what they need is someone who can listen to them, give them some tactful encouragement, and occasionally help them find a strategy that will help them to overcome the troubles that they're facing. Be that therapy or a debtors anonymous meeting. It's a challenging world that is often overwhelming to manage by yourself. It's easy to feel dis-empowered when you don't have a solid social circle that you can lean on, or who can help to re-direct your bad tendencies. Helping folks find their own social group can be immensely helpful for people who are trying to course correct.

spankibalt 1y ago

I don't see a problem here. And as long as they're hurting nobody IDGAF. > "The experience of young men is that they have grown up in a world where they've consistently been told that everything is their fault because they have male privilege." Men had and have privilege, that's a simple sociological and sociohistorical fact. That, because of that fact, "everything is their [i. e. men's] fault" is a reductio ad absurdum. > "'You think I'm the problem? I'll show YOU what it looks like if I BECOME the problem!'" Ah, the old classic: threats and blackmail. Trad dudes just don't get, do they? After hundreds, if not thousands, of years of "I'll show YOU!1!!", that song and dance is stale. People become more empowered individually, with more individual freedom(s). So they are less inclined to settle for bad compromises.

neutronicus 1y ago
The negative externalities of gambling are pretty well-chronicled.

_23sd 1y ago

The way columns like this work is that the author pretends to have a rational basis for their claims that some feature of the masses' private behavior they don't like is going to destroy society, the trick being that they set the starting point of human civilization as portrayed in their narratives and on their charts at around 1950 (or even later in this example, besides the throwaway Max Weber quote from which the title is derived). This ensures that the audience can comfortably ignore the existence of previous degenerate sorts of trends, which have been sanitized by living generations' nostalgia for those cultural moments. Then, after establishing the existence of a serious threat, they try to sell the audience on their preferred solution. Back when we said "Christian" instead of "pro-social", the demand was often temperance, or sometimes a religious reform that that either seems obvious or blasphemous to modern readers. Today the sorts of people who read columnists have reverence for a political ideology instead of a god, so aside from the largely unchanged admonitions against vice, you get arguments that too much construction regulation hollows out our moral virtues. I don't really mind the admonitions against vice (though I find them uninteresting), but the government passing laws in an attempt to fix our morals has a terrible track record. We ought to stick to cold rationality whenever possible.