8 ms·

Young adults are poor despite every metric which suggests otherwise

82 points by like_any_other 3mo ago

like_any_other 3mo ago
Original behind login-wall: https://x.com/JohannKurtz/article/2077113148524417439 https://x.com/JohannKurtz/article/2077113148524417439
AndrewKemendo 3mo ago
>five pillars of a stable middle-class existence: education, stable employment, marriage, homeownership, children. This is cultural bias spoken as though it’s universal Plenty of fulfilling lives out there that don’t include home ownership, being a parent, having secondary schooling or being partnered with offspring.
- Avicebron 3mo ago
  This is sort of orthogonal to the point though, people who want those things (the author being one of them) aren't able to achieve them. Plenty of fulfilling lives out there for any conceivable metric, it doesn't mean that the article is incorrect.
- andsoitis 3mo ago
  You’re saying one can be happy without being bourgeois. I think that’s self-evident.
- thewebguyd 3mo ago
  I don’t even think there can be an agreed upon metric for life satisfaction, let alone what an ideal “middle class existence” looks like. It’s going to be different for everyone. For me, home ownership nor children would be part of my “ideal middle-class existence” quite the opposite. I want stable housing, I don’t necessarily want to own it and all the burden that comes with ownership, and I definitely did not and still do not want responsibility over bring a child into the world. Thankfully, my wife agrees. If we were to even approach a definition it might be something like “Do you have stable housing, access to nutrition, hygiene, transportation, etc. while also having enough capital resources and time to achieve your personal goals?” And that’s going to look different for everyone.
  - zeroCalories 3mo ago
    These are not mere personal goals, they provide value back to society, which in turn helps others to achieve these goals. That's why we are concerned with them. We have a generation of leeches and losers that are only concerned with maximizing their consumption, not leaving behind a legacy.
- mindslight 3mo ago
  Regardless of the path you have chosen for yourself, your existence is owed to your parents having had at least some, if not most, of those things.
  - grebc 3mo ago
    I’d wager for the majority of human population, present & past, that the opposite is largely true. Most people are not well off and anecdotally I also don’t know many happily married couples nor happily married parents.
    - mindslight 3mo ago
      What would HN be without edgelords going "well akshually..." ? My statement is tautologically true. I don't know anybody whose parents did not have a child. So how much exactly did you "wager" and where do I pick up my winnings? Directionally, humans want stability before trying to create offspring. This is the whole r/K selection thing. And even though what constitutes stability is going to vary wildly based on culture, expanding the scope to "present & past" is more of an exploration in what constitutes that stability rather than a repudiation of the main point.
      - grebc 3mo ago
        You used a lot of big words but nothing repudiates what I said. Congrats.
        mindslight 3mo ago
        I don't know that I consider any of those big words...
al_borland 3mo ago
> It’s Hard to See My Parents Live So Lavishly While We’re Struggling While I won't deny there are some problems currently, I think people comparing where they start to where others end is a huge mistake and leads to a lot of unnecessary anguish. Someone in their 60s is supposed to be doing better than someone in their 20s. They had 40+ years to work and save. If they did it right, that will put them in a better position than a 20 year old... just like that 20 years old should be in a better position when they are in their 60s. It would be pretty disheartening if people in their 20s saw that it just gets worse.
- Avicebron 3mo ago
  Well a lot of those now 60 year olds were buying houses and land in their 20s-30s..
  - flohofwoe 3mo ago
    Buying a house in their 20s... are you serious? If true and not just an urban myth, that must have been a US specific thing, maybe caused by the exceptional situation of the US coming out as the biggest winner of WW2. Anywhere else in the world you could be lucky to even move out of your parent's rented flat in your 20s ;) PS: also, what's the obsession of young people with home ownership
    - singingtoday 3mo ago
      I don't buy that because China has very high home ownership rates. So it can be done. Even today.
      - flohofwoe 3mo ago
        China is arguably currently also in an exceptional situation though. The question is how long that lasts. The next generation or the one after will most likely also complain that their parents were much better off when they were young ;)
    - 3mo ago
watwut 3mo ago
> Women now substantially outnumber men on university campuses and outpace them in degrees earned, yet the preference for husbands who match or exceed a wife’s income and education has not correspondingly relaxed. The result is a radical market mismatch. College educated women marry at the same rate they used to. They marry similarly earning men without collage degrees, who exist. Marriage rates collapsed among non educated women/men. Complete collapse is among previously incarcerated men who are largely out of marriage market. And generally among poor. But like, college educates women are the demographic that do marry.
- dyauspitr 3mo ago
  In divorces involving college educated women, they initiate 90% of them. It’s bad news all round.
  - amanaplanacanal 3mo ago
    Thank the gods that women aren't trapped in failing marriages anymore. At least some things are getting better.
  - watwut 3mo ago
    Fun fact too: college educated women divorce less then others. So, their behavior does in fact leads to stability, their partners are happy or at least choosing to stay. What seems to happen is that if the marriage does not work, they tend to ve at the loosing side of it and have real option to leave.
  - michaelmrose 3mo ago
    This means that when marriages implode women are the ones that call in the accident after the car has already crashed rolled over and caught fire. It tells you nothing about what killed the marriage
honeycrispy 3mo ago
Every time I think I have money I get massive insurance bills, massive property tax bills that increase seemingly every year, a fence I had to install so my kids don't get mangled by the pitbull 2 doors down that was $12k that was $4k 10 years ago. I know because my parents installed the same fence at their house. I'm paying a not insignificant portion of my income into a social security program that I'll never see a dime of. And I'm in my 30's. I can't imagine what kids in their 20's are going through. When I was a kid I used to think that theives would break through my windows and steal my TV. Now that I'm an adult, I realize I'm being robbed daily through legal channels.
- estearum 3mo ago
  "Robbery" is a very immature and totally counterproductive way to think about rising costs.
  - wahnfrieden 3mo ago
    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/19/us-inflation-caused-by-corporate-profits https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/19/us-inflatio... > Half of recent US inflation due to high corporate profits, report finds
    - estearum 3mo ago
      1. Voluntary transactions (even if high-margin for one side) is not "robbery" 2. None of the examples GP listed has anything to do with high corporate profits
      - danaris 3mo ago
        "Voluntary" is bullshit. You can call these transactions "voluntary", but when a huge percentage of the people in America do not make enough money to save, period, that means that all their income is going to necessities (with "a few small luxuries" also being a necessity for any human being). Many of the companies making the biggest profits are also the companies that own the highest percentage of their respective markets. People don't have a choice.
standardUser 3mo ago
"Marriage follows the same pattern. Women now substantially outnumber men on university campuses and outpace them in degrees earned, yet the preference for husbands who match or exceed a wife’s income and education has not correspondingly relaxed. The result is a radical market mismatch." I read a lot on this particular topic and this is a little too narrow of a reading. There is a more dominant trend - women and men are drifting apart culturally faster than they are economically. Men who keep pace culturally can get away with falling behind economically, and, to a lesser degree, vice versa. But you can't fall behind on both and expect to find a lot of women interested in dating or marrying you.
- slopinthebag 3mo ago
  I find it interesting how you frame the cultural drift as men falling "behind". I assume you're speaking about politics? I don't know what other aspects of culture that have the genders diverging.
  - watwut 3mo ago
    Men drift toward violent, toward far right and toward disdain of women. All three are dangerous partners to have. Simple rationality implies avoiding them.
    - slopinthebag 3mo ago
      Seems like a massive generalization.
    - sph 3mo ago
      Young men would not feel so alienated if progressives and social media didn’t keep telling them they are violent rapist scum too dumb to think for themselves. Their choice for role model is a society that despises and blames them, or hucksters despising and blaming the other side. Who is young Timmy gonna listen to? If kids flock to Andrew Tate, the problem are not the kids, nor their gender, but society as a whole must have fucked up enormously and failed 50% of the human population. Generalising comments like yours ruin lives and you should feel ashamed about it. Sadly, you can find them on the front page of any left-of-centre newspaper.
jamilton 3mo ago
>For example: an American family in 1975 could send their children to public school on the assumption that the vast majority of other children would belong to intact families, communities like their own, and would speak English as a first language. Now, realistically, many parents must turn to private schooling for the same reassurances. It was hard to take the rest of the article seriously after reading this.
- deleted 3mo ago
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- like_any_other 3mo ago
  Let's look at those claims: "the vast majority of other children would belong to intact families" In 1975, the single motherhood rate was 15%. In 2015, it was 40%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_parents_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_parents_in_the_United_S... "communities like their own," In 1970, the US was 83.5% non-Hispanic White. In 2020 it was 57.8%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_demographics_of_the_United_States#Historical_data_for_all_races_and_for_Hispanic_origin_(1610%E2%80%932020) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_d... "and would speak English as a first language" In 1980, Spanish speakers were 5% of the US. In 2024, it was 13.9%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States#Spanish_(42.03_million_speakers) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States... So the claims are factual. Do you just object to pointing it out?
  - win311fwg 3mo ago
    Except the claim that many parents must now to turn to private schools. Private school enrolment has declined since 1975.
    - Jap2-0 3mo ago
      Has it declined as much as we would expect, given the decrease in religiosity in the US over that time period? I've only found data going back to 1995,[0] which shows relatively flat numbers for the past 15 years or so. (And the amount of parents which are interested in their children attending private schools vs those who have access to and can afford them is an entirely different discussion.) [0] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d23/tables/dt23_205.10.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d23/tables/dt23_205.10.a...
deleted 3mo ago
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victor9000 3mo ago
Denying your own child a $15K business loan just to placate your sadistic delusions perfectly describes the mindset of aging boomers. They're happy to watch their own children struggle for the opportunity to validate their ideology. They don't have enough empathy to help their own children, so it's futile expecting them to care about anyone else in society. They use tragedy of the commons situations to justify endless gluttony, and will act surprised when the next generation pisses on their graves.
- ghastmaster 3mo ago
  Without knowing the personality of the child and the history of behavior, it is rather hard to determine whether the parent made the correct decision or not. The article provides very little context. Sometimes this may be the correct decision based on the individual. Every child is different and requires different approaches to discipline and support.
  - mindslight 3mo ago
    I guess nobody can know anything and there is no point in trying to look at the typical experiences of generations, since we can never know if someone is just making up a sob story about what are actually their just deserts. (/s)
  - victor9000 3mo ago
    The article makes it pretty clear > It’s not that I can’t afford to help him,” Steve told me. “I just have a real problem with handouts. And I want him to have the satisfaction of knowing he’s built something himself, with his own hard work. That’s how I was raised, too. So it has nothing to with the son, Steve is just looking to validate his world view. The reality of the situation is that the boomer generation was provided with an immense amount of social assistance, affordability, and opportunity. Yet these are the same benefits they deny even their own children in favor of sadistic fantasies.
- eudamoniac 3mo ago
  If a bank has determined the venture is probably doomed and won't loan the money, why should the parent support this doomed venture? People have idiotic business ideas constantly, way more frequently than they have good ones. On average denying such a loan is correct.
mmooss 3mo ago
I looked up the author, Johann Kurtz. I'm not sure of Kurtz's background otherwise - any economics? Kurtz has a position at the C.S. Lewis Institute, which describes its mission, "we develop wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ who articulate, defend, share, and live their faith in personal and public life." That website describes him thusly: https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/?speaker=johann-kurtz https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/?speaker=johann-kurtz "Johann Kurtz is a legacy adviser and succession strategist, helping individuals and families to arrange their affairs towards lasting good. He is a Substack bestseller, and his blog Becoming Noble – on philosophy, theology, and history – is read by tens of thousands each week. He recently published a book titled Leaving a Legacy: Inheritance, Charity & Thousand-Year Families which reveals that true charity is a multi-generational project—and that virtuous family dynasties are its indispensable guardians. It equips leaders to embrace this sacred duty and forge a legacy they will be forever proud of." Here is the substack, Becoming Noble: https://becomingnoble.substack.com/ https://becomingnoble.substack.com/ "Build family, resources, and security as the West declines. Get the weekly email to join the new elite." and "Our old ways have been forgotten. Subscribe to learn them again." * * * * I think the OP is to a significant degree an intellectual rationalization (and application) of some standard politics, stopping just short explicitly saying it: > For example: an American family in 1975 could send their children to public school on the assumption that the vast majority of other children would belong to intact families, communities like their own, and would speak English as a first language. I've read about family decline going back decades, maybe forever. I strongly doubt the first language of children affects other kids' educations - except maybe exposing other kids to new languages and perspectives. Kurtz includes no specific claim about and no basis for the state of these issues or their impacts. It's all just implied, a dog whistle: Who are these other people? > My argument is that previous generations received an enormous stock of social capital: trusted neighbors, functional public schools, a productive courtship culture, predictable career arcs, and a public square in which children could roam and adults could be relied upon In the latter, I think a lot of those things would be news to prior generations, and of course you can read people in any generation in history decrying current failure of morals (which I think means, it's not like the idealistic views I formed in my childhood). And he even cites fictional, rose-colored nostalgia as evidence (quoting Scott Alexander): > The childhood depicted in nostalgic media rested on a dense web of adults who knew each other, shared a rough moral sense, and could be relied upon to mind each other’s children. That web is now a feature of particular places (often expensive places) rather than a general inheritance, and discerning which places have kept it is of key importance for families hoping to raise agentic children with deep networks of trusted friends. And there are things that rest on speculation: > The socializing that happened in parks, neighborhoods, boy scouts, etc. now must happen in the private domain. Why? I see plenty of kids in parks and neighborhoods, in all sorts of neighborhoods in cities. It also ignores where much childhood socialising takes place now: Online. And he also seems to verge into incel territory, again without saying the quiet part out loud: > Women now substantially outnumber men on university campuses and outpace them in degrees earned, yet the preference for husbands who match or exceed a wife’s income and education has not correspondingly relaxed. ... For a regular man, this implies that becoming marriageable now requires clearing exceptional bars: a degree (with the debt that comes attached) and an income well above the male median (also — 6ft, muscular physique, etc. etc.). I read: those women ruining everything by getting educations and careers, and declining to do free menial labor for men! > Move the at-home spouse into the labor market and every service she provided must be repurchased from the latest private equity roll-up (nursery, takeaway, cleaner, security system…).
camgunz 3mo ago
First, I beg people to read Annie Lowrey's "The Great Affordability Crisis" (https://xcancel.com/i/article/2077113148524417439 https://xcancel.com/i/article/2077113148524417439), which is criminally under read. Second and more fundamentally, most people know neoliberalism fucked us. Like, not just that we're at the end of a typical cycle, but that what predated it was better. That's why the middle is falling out of western politics and populism is rising: voters are bitter, angry, and looking for the next thing. It turns out you can't turn everything--romance, friendships, caring for children, education, health care, free time--into a (preferably unregulated) market and still have a functioning society. Third, we have to ban social media, and here I mean any communications platform where you can farm engagement and virality (Reddit is social media because there's a feed and engagement metrics; Usenet and forums are not). This seems like a wildly hot take, but the truth is we should ban video news; only banning social media is a huge concession. Fourth and finally, don't fall into the "make America great again" trap. Pick a decade and I'll point out some insane awfulness: Jim Crow, marital rape wasn't a concept until the 80s, homophobia, OPEC, Vietnam, the Cold War, unbelievable pollution, smoking literally fuckin everywhere, etc etc. Going back isn't an option. It's hard, but we can do hard things. I actually think we're in a really exciting time. We've never had more resources, we've never been better at making decisions (honestly just read about Robert McNamara), and we're newly unburdened by a prevailing orthodoxy. If we do it right, the next era could be really incredible.
joeyguerra 3mo ago
Difficult to falsify.
CircuitSeuss 3mo ago
> The over-priced neighborhood is perversely desirable when pricing is the only legal means of discrimination in an increasingly dysfunctional society. Excellent explanation of why, despite the hollowed out middle class, we see a surge of developer housing marketed to those who wish to retain the pretense of class status.
RickJWagner 3mo ago
This may be localized. I live in a LCOL area, my oldest son is 27. He and his wife have modest salaries ( teacher and clerical ), own 2 newish cars and a midsized house. They eat out a lot, subscribe to streaming services, etc. They’ve got it better than I did at their age. Maybe it’s worse elsewhere.
applicative 3mo ago
I was aware that all these changes reduce to the fact that half society’s brainpower used to come cheap, but hadn’t registered this very pure expression of it “The cheap and effective Catholic school system of old has largely collapsed due to the dearth of nuns“
- port11 3mo ago
  Is the modern non-Catholic school system somehow expensive or ineffective? I fail to understand this take. Education also got vastly more complex, we teach kids a bunch of new stuff.
  - applicative 3mo ago
    In the 30s, say, the proportion of Catholic population constituted by nuns living in poverty, chastity and obedience for the good of the church and its people was higher than the proportion of American schoolteachers to population today. Remember that in those days Cstholics were paying for our schools too. They could afford their own parallel school system because an astonishing proportion of the women committed to poverty and communal living to supply it. The rest of the United States benefited quite massively from these pious women. We noncatholics benefited again from the fact that women generally had so few choices. It was just a more complex version of the Catholic case. I am over 60 and can assure you that the older women who taught me in public school would be federal judges and high class lawyers today. The system will be righted when schoolteachers get the pay and respect of eg federal judge and not a moment before. Quality has deteriorated because we aren’t willing to pay for what we used to get for free.
formvoltron 3mo ago
every gen z i know has many, many tattoos. and tattoos are not cheap.

Original behind login-wall: https://x.com/JohannKurtz/article/2077113148524417439 https://x.com/JohannKurtz/article/2077113148524417439

AndrewKemendo 3mo ago

>five pillars of a stable middle-class existence: education, stable employment, marriage, homeownership, children. This is cultural bias spoken as though it’s universal Plenty of fulfilling lives out there that don’t include home ownership, being a parent, having secondary schooling or being partnered with offspring.

Avicebron 3mo ago
This is sort of orthogonal to the point though, people who want those things (the author being one of them) aren't able to achieve them. Plenty of fulfilling lives out there for any conceivable metric, it doesn't mean that the article is incorrect.
andsoitis 3mo ago
You’re saying one can be happy without being bourgeois. I think that’s self-evident.
thewebguyd 3mo ago
I don’t even think there can be an agreed upon metric for life satisfaction, let alone what an ideal “middle class existence” looks like. It’s going to be different for everyone. For me, home ownership nor children would be part of my “ideal middle-class existence” quite the opposite. I want stable housing, I don’t necessarily want to own it and all the burden that comes with ownership, and I definitely did not and still do not want responsibility over bring a child into the world. Thankfully, my wife agrees. If we were to even approach a definition it might be something like “Do you have stable housing, access to nutrition, hygiene, transportation, etc. while also having enough capital resources and time to achieve your personal goals?” And that’s going to look different for everyone.
- zeroCalories 3mo ago
  These are not mere personal goals, they provide value back to society, which in turn helps others to achieve these goals. That's why we are concerned with them. We have a generation of leeches and losers that are only concerned with maximizing their consumption, not leaving behind a legacy.
mindslight 3mo ago
Regardless of the path you have chosen for yourself, your existence is owed to your parents having had at least some, if not most, of those things.
- grebc 3mo ago
  I’d wager for the majority of human population, present & past, that the opposite is largely true. Most people are not well off and anecdotally I also don’t know many happily married couples nor happily married parents.
  - mindslight 3mo ago
    What would HN be without edgelords going "well akshually..." ? My statement is tautologically true. I don't know anybody whose parents did not have a child. So how much exactly did you "wager" and where do I pick up my winnings? Directionally, humans want stability before trying to create offspring. This is the whole r/K selection thing. And even though what constitutes stability is going to vary wildly based on culture, expanding the scope to "present & past" is more of an exploration in what constitutes that stability rather than a repudiation of the main point.
    - grebc 3mo ago
      You used a lot of big words but nothing repudiates what I said. Congrats.
      - mindslight 3mo ago
        I don't know that I consider any of those big words...

al_borland 3mo ago

> It’s Hard to See My Parents Live So Lavishly While We’re Struggling While I won't deny there are some problems currently, I think people comparing where they start to where others end is a huge mistake and leads to a lot of unnecessary anguish. Someone in their 60s is supposed to be doing better than someone in their 20s. They had 40+ years to work and save. If they did it right, that will put them in a better position than a 20 year old... just like that 20 years old should be in a better position when they are in their 60s. It would be pretty disheartening if people in their 20s saw that it just gets worse.

Avicebron 3mo ago
Well a lot of those now 60 year olds were buying houses and land in their 20s-30s..
- flohofwoe 3mo ago
  Buying a house in their 20s... are you serious? If true and not just an urban myth, that must have been a US specific thing, maybe caused by the exceptional situation of the US coming out as the biggest winner of WW2. Anywhere else in the world you could be lucky to even move out of your parent's rented flat in your 20s ;) PS: also, what's the obsession of young people with home ownership
  - singingtoday 3mo ago
    I don't buy that because China has very high home ownership rates. So it can be done. Even today.
    - flohofwoe 3mo ago
      China is arguably currently also in an exceptional situation though. The question is how long that lasts. The next generation or the one after will most likely also complain that their parents were much better off when they were young ;)
  - 3mo ago

watwut 3mo ago

> Women now substantially outnumber men on university campuses and outpace them in degrees earned, yet the preference for husbands who match or exceed a wife’s income and education has not correspondingly relaxed. The result is a radical market mismatch. College educated women marry at the same rate they used to. They marry similarly earning men without collage degrees, who exist. Marriage rates collapsed among non educated women/men. Complete collapse is among previously incarcerated men who are largely out of marriage market. And generally among poor. But like, college educates women are the demographic that do marry.

dyauspitr 3mo ago
In divorces involving college educated women, they initiate 90% of them. It’s bad news all round.
- amanaplanacanal 3mo ago
  Thank the gods that women aren't trapped in failing marriages anymore. At least some things are getting better.
- watwut 3mo ago
  Fun fact too: college educated women divorce less then others. So, their behavior does in fact leads to stability, their partners are happy or at least choosing to stay. What seems to happen is that if the marriage does not work, they tend to ve at the loosing side of it and have real option to leave.
- michaelmrose 3mo ago
  This means that when marriages implode women are the ones that call in the accident after the car has already crashed rolled over and caught fire. It tells you nothing about what killed the marriage

honeycrispy 3mo ago

Every time I think I have money I get massive insurance bills, massive property tax bills that increase seemingly every year, a fence I had to install so my kids don't get mangled by the pitbull 2 doors down that was $12k that was $4k 10 years ago. I know because my parents installed the same fence at their house. I'm paying a not insignificant portion of my income into a social security program that I'll never see a dime of. And I'm in my 30's. I can't imagine what kids in their 20's are going through. When I was a kid I used to think that theives would break through my windows and steal my TV. Now that I'm an adult, I realize I'm being robbed daily through legal channels.

estearum 3mo ago
"Robbery" is a very immature and totally counterproductive way to think about rising costs.
- wahnfrieden 3mo ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/19/us-inflation-caused-by-corporate-profits https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/19/us-inflatio... > Half of recent US inflation due to high corporate profits, report finds
  - estearum 3mo ago
    1. Voluntary transactions (even if high-margin for one side) is not "robbery" 2. None of the examples GP listed has anything to do with high corporate profits
    - danaris 3mo ago
      "Voluntary" is bullshit. You can call these transactions "voluntary", but when a huge percentage of the people in America do not make enough money to save, period, that means that all their income is going to necessities (with "a few small luxuries" also being a necessity for any human being). Many of the companies making the biggest profits are also the companies that own the highest percentage of their respective markets. People don't have a choice.

standardUser 3mo ago

"Marriage follows the same pattern. Women now substantially outnumber men on university campuses and outpace them in degrees earned, yet the preference for husbands who match or exceed a wife’s income and education has not correspondingly relaxed. The result is a radical market mismatch." I read a lot on this particular topic and this is a little too narrow of a reading. There is a more dominant trend - women and men are drifting apart culturally faster than they are economically. Men who keep pace culturally can get away with falling behind economically, and, to a lesser degree, vice versa. But you can't fall behind on both and expect to find a lot of women interested in dating or marrying you.

slopinthebag 3mo ago
I find it interesting how you frame the cultural drift as men falling "behind". I assume you're speaking about politics? I don't know what other aspects of culture that have the genders diverging.
- watwut 3mo ago
  Men drift toward violent, toward far right and toward disdain of women. All three are dangerous partners to have. Simple rationality implies avoiding them.
  - slopinthebag 3mo ago
    Seems like a massive generalization.
  - sph 3mo ago
    Young men would not feel so alienated if progressives and social media didn’t keep telling them they are violent rapist scum too dumb to think for themselves. Their choice for role model is a society that despises and blames them, or hucksters despising and blaming the other side. Who is young Timmy gonna listen to? If kids flock to Andrew Tate, the problem are not the kids, nor their gender, but society as a whole must have fucked up enormously and failed 50% of the human population. Generalising comments like yours ruin lives and you should feel ashamed about it. Sadly, you can find them on the front page of any left-of-centre newspaper.

jamilton 3mo ago

>For example: an American family in 1975 could send their children to public school on the assumption that the vast majority of other children would belong to intact families, communities like their own, and would speak English as a first language. Now, realistically, many parents must turn to private schooling for the same reassurances. It was hard to take the rest of the article seriously after reading this.

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
like_any_other 3mo ago
Let's look at those claims: "the vast majority of other children would belong to intact families" In 1975, the single motherhood rate was 15%. In 2015, it was 40%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_parents_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_parents_in_the_United_S... "communities like their own," In 1970, the US was 83.5% non-Hispanic White. In 2020 it was 57.8%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_demographics_of_the_United_States#Historical_data_for_all_races_and_for_Hispanic_origin_(1610%E2%80%932020) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_racial_and_ethnic_d... "and would speak English as a first language" In 1980, Spanish speakers were 5% of the US. In 2024, it was 13.9%: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States#Spanish_(42.03_million_speakers) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States... So the claims are factual. Do you just object to pointing it out?
- win311fwg 3mo ago
  Except the claim that many parents must now to turn to private schools. Private school enrolment has declined since 1975.
  - Jap2-0 3mo ago
    Has it declined as much as we would expect, given the decrease in religiosity in the US over that time period? I've only found data going back to 1995,[0] which shows relatively flat numbers for the past 15 years or so. (And the amount of parents which are interested in their children attending private schools vs those who have access to and can afford them is an entirely different discussion.) [0] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d23/tables/dt23_205.10.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d23/tables/dt23_205.10.a...

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victor9000 3mo ago

Denying your own child a $15K business loan just to placate your sadistic delusions perfectly describes the mindset of aging boomers. They're happy to watch their own children struggle for the opportunity to validate their ideology. They don't have enough empathy to help their own children, so it's futile expecting them to care about anyone else in society. They use tragedy of the commons situations to justify endless gluttony, and will act surprised when the next generation pisses on their graves.

ghastmaster 3mo ago
Without knowing the personality of the child and the history of behavior, it is rather hard to determine whether the parent made the correct decision or not. The article provides very little context. Sometimes this may be the correct decision based on the individual. Every child is different and requires different approaches to discipline and support.
- mindslight 3mo ago
  I guess nobody can know anything and there is no point in trying to look at the typical experiences of generations, since we can never know if someone is just making up a sob story about what are actually their just deserts. (/s)
- victor9000 3mo ago
  The article makes it pretty clear > It’s not that I can’t afford to help him,” Steve told me. “I just have a real problem with handouts. And I want him to have the satisfaction of knowing he’s built something himself, with his own hard work. That’s how I was raised, too. So it has nothing to with the son, Steve is just looking to validate his world view. The reality of the situation is that the boomer generation was provided with an immense amount of social assistance, affordability, and opportunity. Yet these are the same benefits they deny even their own children in favor of sadistic fantasies.
eudamoniac 3mo ago
If a bank has determined the venture is probably doomed and won't loan the money, why should the parent support this doomed venture? People have idiotic business ideas constantly, way more frequently than they have good ones. On average denying such a loan is correct.

mmooss 3mo ago

I looked up the author, Johann Kurtz. I'm not sure of Kurtz's background otherwise - any economics? Kurtz has a position at the C.S. Lewis Institute, which describes its mission, "we develop wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ who articulate, defend, share, and live their faith in personal and public life." That website describes him thusly: https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/?speaker=johann-kurtz https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/?speaker=johann-kurtz "Johann Kurtz is a legacy adviser and succession strategist, helping individuals and families to arrange their affairs towards lasting good. He is a Substack bestseller, and his blog Becoming Noble – on philosophy, theology, and history – is read by tens of thousands each week. He recently published a book titled Leaving a Legacy: Inheritance, Charity & Thousand-Year Families which reveals that true charity is a multi-generational project—and that virtuous family dynasties are its indispensable guardians. It equips leaders to embrace this sacred duty and forge a legacy they will be forever proud of." Here is the substack, Becoming Noble: https://becomingnoble.substack.com/ https://becomingnoble.substack.com/ "Build family, resources, and security as the West declines. Get the weekly email to join the new elite." and "Our old ways have been forgotten. Subscribe to learn them again." * * * * I think the OP is to a significant degree an intellectual rationalization (and application) of some standard politics, stopping just short explicitly saying it: > For example: an American family in 1975 could send their children to public school on the assumption that the vast majority of other children would belong to intact families, communities like their own, and would speak English as a first language. I've read about family decline going back decades, maybe forever. I strongly doubt the first language of children affects other kids' educations - except maybe exposing other kids to new languages and perspectives. Kurtz includes no specific claim about and no basis for the state of these issues or their impacts. It's all just implied, a dog whistle: Who are these other people? > My argument is that previous generations received an enormous stock of social capital: trusted neighbors, functional public schools, a productive courtship culture, predictable career arcs, and a public square in which children could roam and adults could be relied upon In the latter, I think a lot of those things would be news to prior generations, and of course you can read people in any generation in history decrying current failure of morals (which I think means, it's not like the idealistic views I formed in my childhood). And he even cites fictional, rose-colored nostalgia as evidence (quoting Scott Alexander): > The childhood depicted in nostalgic media rested on a dense web of adults who knew each other, shared a rough moral sense, and could be relied upon to mind each other’s children. That web is now a feature of particular places (often expensive places) rather than a general inheritance, and discerning which places have kept it is of key importance for families hoping to raise agentic children with deep networks of trusted friends. And there are things that rest on speculation: > The socializing that happened in parks, neighborhoods, boy scouts, etc. now must happen in the private domain. Why? I see plenty of kids in parks and neighborhoods, in all sorts of neighborhoods in cities. It also ignores where much childhood socialising takes place now: Online. And he also seems to verge into incel territory, again without saying the quiet part out loud: > Women now substantially outnumber men on university campuses and outpace them in degrees earned, yet the preference for husbands who match or exceed a wife’s income and education has not correspondingly relaxed. ... For a regular man, this implies that becoming marriageable now requires clearing exceptional bars: a degree (with the debt that comes attached) and an income well above the male median (also — 6ft, muscular physique, etc. etc.). I read: those women ruining everything by getting educations and careers, and declining to do free menial labor for men! > Move the at-home spouse into the labor market and every service she provided must be repurchased from the latest private equity roll-up (nursery, takeaway, cleaner, security system…).

camgunz 3mo ago

First, I beg people to read Annie Lowrey's "The Great Affordability Crisis" (https://xcancel.com/i/article/2077113148524417439 https://xcancel.com/i/article/2077113148524417439), which is criminally under read. Second and more fundamentally, most people know neoliberalism fucked us. Like, not just that we're at the end of a typical cycle, but that what predated it was better. That's why the middle is falling out of western politics and populism is rising: voters are bitter, angry, and looking for the next thing. It turns out you can't turn everything--romance, friendships, caring for children, education, health care, free time--into a (preferably unregulated) market and still have a functioning society. Third, we have to ban social media, and here I mean any communications platform where you can farm engagement and virality (Reddit is social media because there's a feed and engagement metrics; Usenet and forums are not). This seems like a wildly hot take, but the truth is we should ban video news; only banning social media is a huge concession. Fourth and finally, don't fall into the "make America great again" trap. Pick a decade and I'll point out some insane awfulness: Jim Crow, marital rape wasn't a concept until the 80s, homophobia, OPEC, Vietnam, the Cold War, unbelievable pollution, smoking literally fuckin everywhere, etc etc. Going back isn't an option. It's hard, but we can do hard things. I actually think we're in a really exciting time. We've never had more resources, we've never been better at making decisions (honestly just read about Robert McNamara), and we're newly unburdened by a prevailing orthodoxy. If we do it right, the next era could be really incredible.

joeyguerra 3mo ago

Difficult to falsify.

CircuitSeuss 3mo ago

> The over-priced neighborhood is perversely desirable when pricing is the only legal means of discrimination in an increasingly dysfunctional society. Excellent explanation of why, despite the hollowed out middle class, we see a surge of developer housing marketed to those who wish to retain the pretense of class status.

RickJWagner 3mo ago

This may be localized. I live in a LCOL area, my oldest son is 27. He and his wife have modest salaries ( teacher and clerical ), own 2 newish cars and a midsized house. They eat out a lot, subscribe to streaming services, etc. They’ve got it better than I did at their age. Maybe it’s worse elsewhere.

applicative 3mo ago

I was aware that all these changes reduce to the fact that half society’s brainpower used to come cheap, but hadn’t registered this very pure expression of it “The cheap and effective Catholic school system of old has largely collapsed due to the dearth of nuns“

port11 3mo ago
Is the modern non-Catholic school system somehow expensive or ineffective? I fail to understand this take. Education also got vastly more complex, we teach kids a bunch of new stuff.
- applicative 3mo ago
  In the 30s, say, the proportion of Catholic population constituted by nuns living in poverty, chastity and obedience for the good of the church and its people was higher than the proportion of American schoolteachers to population today. Remember that in those days Cstholics were paying for our schools too. They could afford their own parallel school system because an astonishing proportion of the women committed to poverty and communal living to supply it. The rest of the United States benefited quite massively from these pious women. We noncatholics benefited again from the fact that women generally had so few choices. It was just a more complex version of the Catholic case. I am over 60 and can assure you that the older women who taught me in public school would be federal judges and high class lawyers today. The system will be righted when schoolteachers get the pay and respect of eg federal judge and not a moment before. Quality has deteriorated because we aren’t willing to pay for what we used to get for free.

formvoltron 3mo ago

every gen z i know has many, many tattoos. and tattoos are not cheap.