[HN Gopher] No one expects young men to do anything and they are...
___________________________________________________________________
No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by
doing nothing
Author : Bostonian
Score : 563 points
Date : 2022-04-24 12:07 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (robkhenderson.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (robkhenderson.substack.com)
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| Interestingly, of the two towns - Belmont and Fishtown, you
| immediately know which one is poor and which one is rich. What if
| we rename Fishtown to, say, Barbeau?
| dumb_troll wrote:
| Maybe this is an idiotic thought so forgive me if that's the
| case.
|
| Does it seem that a lot of this is "we hollowed out these areas
| for economic efficiency and then all the dudes (regardless of
| race...) became layabouts and drug addicts". I grew up in Kenya
| after the SAPs were imposed by the IMF and I vaguely remember
| complaints of alcoholism just spiking. I guess my dumb thought is
| maybe dudes just need to build, farm, or produce something
| tangible otherwise they become heroin addicts.
| jcstk wrote:
| I can appreciate this perspective because I used to have it. I
| even wrote a similar blog post 10 years ago - it was on the top
| of HN and the comment section was a beautiful shitshow. For me,
| this perspective was a good story to tell myself - it justified
| why I was only investing my time in "work", and validated me for
| having "come so far".
|
| Over time, I have reflected and shifted this perspective. That
| reflection centered around the question the author hasn't asked
| himself yet: who creates these expectations? It's always some
| loose definition like "society" or "elite", or some other handy
| wavy grouping of people.
|
| But, to be clear, those expectations are coming from the author.
| That's his perspective of what the world thinks, based on his
| interactions, based on what he chooses to read, listen to, etc.
| He's not describing anyone but himself.
|
| I found that if I find myself projecting onto social norms,
| society, or some other loose definition of "they", what I'm
| really doing is projecting a part of myself that I haven't been
| honest about yet.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _But, to be clear, those expectations are coming from the
| author. That's his perspective of what the world thinks, based
| on his interactions, based on what he chooses to read, listen
| to, etc. He 's not describing anyone but himself._
|
| The last conclusion is a little off. Everybody who expresses
| any opinion is describing "his perspective of what the world
| thinks, based on his interactions, based on what he chooses to
| read, listen to, etc". That doesn't mean they can't also
| coincide with a general trend, for example "societal
| expectations" at large.
| supersync wrote:
| Well said.
|
| The glaring piece missing from this analysis is the psychology
| of the young men themselves.
|
| Raising two young men myself, I'm blown away by how powerful
| cultivating intrinsic motivation is. My eldest just went from
| constant gaming/sleeping/hiding in his room to working a full-
| time job, launching a side hustle, and enrolling in classes.
|
| Yes, my modeling & encouragement mattered. But the fulcrum was
| him accepting that living up to other people's expectation in
| high school had left him tired, depressed, and lost.
|
| The author has clearly identified that young man lack a goal
| worthy of their efforts.
|
| He's just completely ignored intrinsic motivation and the power
| of cultivating it.
|
| I don't think that's an accident. I think our entire approach
| to young men as a society ignores the fundamental power of
| their interests.
| skyde wrote:
| father of a 4 years old boy. please help me! How do you
| cultivate intrinsic motivation ? any good strategy or book?
| andreilys wrote:
| _who creates these expectations? It's always some loose
| definition like "society" or "elite", or some other handy wavy
| grouping of people._
|
| I suggest reading the book "Manufacturing Consent" to get an
| understanding of how expectations are shaped by mass media.
|
| Just like there was a concerted effort to create public support
| for war (WW1/WW2/Vietnam/etc.), there are concerted efforts to
| shape public opinion and create expectations within our broader
| culture about morals/values/etc. Sometimes it's explicit, and
| often times it's implicit and picked up via signaling cues
| (i.e. high status reporter says X, to go against X would mean
| no more invites to fancy dinner parties)
| gameswithgo wrote:
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Are you actually disagreeing with the author? Or are you just
| saying the author is forming these perceptions in his head?
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Hm. What about other things though, which are not the job, but
| still require effort/work? Like working on free software,
| working for a social project, being politically active, doing
| things of charity reasons ... Those don't require one to define
| oneself in terms of how far one has gotten in their career, but
| they actually add value to society. In many cases adding more
| value to society than the actual job. I think it's quite OK to
| define ones worth using such measures. We all live in a
| society. People should ask themselves more often how much they
| contributed to the well-being of society.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Volunteering tends to be an elite activity anyway. When
| people have to work multiple full-time jobs just to survive,
| it's just not very helpful or meaningful to ask whether they
| might find their inner fulfillment by helping out at the
| local animal shelter.
| rayiner wrote:
| In Tokyo, nobody jay walks. In New York City, everyone jay
| walks. Do you think there's (1) not the product of cultural
| norms; and (2) no way for someone embedded in that culture to
| be able to observe those cultural norms and comment on them?
| jelly wrote:
| Perhaps 10 years of existing within the system led you away
| from the more revolutionary perspective and towards the status
| quo. I would be curious to see the blog post you wrote, I can't
| find it in your submissions.
| clearleaf wrote:
| I hope I never find myself popping out of trap doors to
| defend the status quo like they are.
| 3np wrote:
| One thing that really stuck out to me was the implicit
| assumption that "stable home environment" requires or is equal
| to "married couple of biological parents living together until
| child becomes adult".
|
| Especially the quote where an agreement that stability is
| important was interpreted as agreement that marriage is
| important.
| rayiner wrote:
| Virtually everyone in the world aside from a handful of
| declining European countries believes that "stable home
| environment" = "married parents."
| giantg2 wrote:
| I believe Harvard did a study that showed that two parent
| households were more strongly correlated with child academic
| achievement than other factors. Granted that's not married
| couples or biological parents, but two parent households. And
| academic achievement is only one measure of success.
| dash2 wrote:
| The evidence is that married couples are more stable than
| unmarried couples.
| philosopher1234 wrote:
| Maybe you could share this evidence instead of sharing an
| anonymous assertion
| redmen wrote:
| They basically said stable relationships are more stable
| than unstable relationships and you want evidence?
| Strom wrote:
| Stable relationships are possible without marriage. Some
| people view these as synonyms and others see that as a
| clear mistake.
| convolvatron wrote:
| i can certainly think of cases where the children and one
| parent are really much better off without the second
| metadat wrote:
| Yes it happens, but isn't the rule. On average, it's
| ideal to have two happy, loving parents. But only on
| average!
| danaris wrote:
| Why are the only options "married couple" or "unmarried
| couple"? Or even "married couple" or "single parent"?
|
| Why can't broader family structures be considered, and be
| stable?
| [deleted]
| the_solenoid wrote:
| I agree - and will take it one step further: he misses the root
| causes of "instability", and I bet it tracks directly with the
| gutting of the middle class starting in the 70's, and/or the
| same flat-lining of wages (not keeping up with inflation etc)
| despite huge increases in productivity in about the same time
| period.
|
| Money is a huge stressor in relationships. Misogyny is still a
| huge thing (to my utter surprise honestly). Abuse, etc. Options
| for financial stability to escape these things I would suspect
| to contribute as well.
| fwip wrote:
| It's absolutely wild to me that Rob quotes:
|
| > Lack of money is certainly a contributing cause, as we will
| see, but rarely the only factor. It is usually the young
| father's criminal behavior, the spells of incarceration that
| so often follow, a pattern of intimate violence, his chronic
| infidelity, and an inability to leave drugs and alcohol alone
| that cause relationships to falter and die.
|
| Without seeming to make any sort of connection that poverty
| is a causative factor in every single one of these. Poor
| people are more likely to commit crimes of desperation. Poor
| people are over-policed when compared to middle-or-upper
| class people. Poverty makes it more difficult to escape
| domestic abuse. (Idk about the infidelity one). Drugs &
| alcohol are maladaptive coping methods that many people use
| to escape the reality of their daily lives - which are much
| worse when you're poor.
|
| But y'know, that doesn't fit into his worldview that the
| dissolution of "family values" is the root cause of all this.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Drugs & alcohol are maladaptive coping methods that many
| people use to escape the reality of their daily lives -
| which are much worse when you're poor."
|
| I imagine this explains the correlation between poor
| minority neighborhoods during the crack epidemic or between
| the depressed rural areas and the opioid epidemic now.
| paradox242 wrote:
| Did you grow poor or have friends from poor backgrounds? I
| saw lots of drug use, stealing, petty vandalism and
| violence, and little if any of it had to do with their
| trying to survive in a material sense. There are different
| norms around which behaviors grant status, and this is the
| primary driver behind this kind of behavior in my
| experience.
| fwip wrote:
| Yeah, I did.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| You're describing the cultural correlates of social
| marginalization and fraying social capital, not "poverty"
| per se. In many poor countries, casual anti-social
| behavior does _not_ grant community status; in fact, the
| opposite is the case and punishments can be quite harsh
| indeed (though not nearly as harsh or socially damaging
| as the long-term imprisonment that 's all-too-common in
| the US.) Widespread poverty in those failing communities
| is the _consequence_ of such dynamics, not the cause.
| rayiner wrote:
| Poverty isn't the cause of crime. People were objectively
| poorer in the 1950s, even in the lower classes, and people
| in developing countries are much poorer than even poor
| Americans.
| fwip wrote:
| Absolute income (whether measured in dollars or
| purchasing power) means very little when compared across
| time periods or countries. Poverty has never been about
| your absolute buying power. It is relative to the society
| you exist in. You will find, by any objective measure,
| that the wealth disparity in the US is nearly as high as
| it has ever been (only exceeded by the Great Depression).
| These same objective measures will consistently score the
| US as worse than many developing countries.
|
| You will find across many eras and cultures in the last
| two millennia that the poorest members of the society are
| the most vulnerable members of society and the most
| likely to be punished for committing crimes. If you still
| don't believe me, read this paper for an in-depth
| analysis that controls for many factors: https://web.worl
| dbank.org/archive/website01241/WEB/IMAGES/IN...
|
| Laws are made by those with power. In today's society,
| power comes in large part from wealth - that's the
| foundation of capitalism. The objective of capitalism is
| to accrue capital, and our laws and police system are set
| up to protect the wealthy and their wealth.
|
| That's why graffiti is punishable by ten years in prison.
| Stealing a week's worth of groceries can mean years in
| prison. In contrast, the penalty for illegally evicting a
| renter, rendering them homeless, is about two or three
| months rent, and no prison time.
| bradlys wrote:
| The author of this article used Charles Murray's Coming Apart
| as a source. He's a pretty... controversial figure. The
| counterpart to him that is more progressive and less
| controversial is Robert Putnam. His books are a lot more
| digestible. I'd suggest looking up talks with the author on
| YouTube. (He even has a debate with Charles Murray - as they
| are somewhat of friends)
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22609334-our-kids
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50124402-the-upswing
|
| One thing I want to mention here is that it seems that
| _social_ effects come before economic effects. People go
| through social change and then the economics follow later.
| That's the one thing I would take away from the books /talks.
| Somewhat ironic to many here.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| The author is focusing on working class families, not middle
| class families (they are discuss as a comparison).
|
| How does the gutting of the middle class harm stability of
| working class families?
| rayiner wrote:
| How does a "flat lining" of wages of cause family stability
| to _go down_? And how do you explain high levels of family
| stability in countries that are much poorer?
| nightvoomer wrote:
| Community.
| rayiner wrote:
| The "community" in those countries enforces exactly the
| norms the author talks about.
| danans wrote:
| > And how do you explain high levels of family stability in
| countries that are much poorer?
|
| Less individual freedom, greater direct economic dependency
| on others in your group, and also the threat of
| ostracization, excommunication, and destitution if you go
| against its rules. Basically, there are extremely high
| cost/stakes associated with going it on your own.
|
| But on the other side there are also good things that come
| from greater direct interdependency, like perhaps less
| individual alienation and a greater sense of shared
| purpose, and access to community resources when you follow
| the prescribed rules.
| jacobolus wrote:
| In some places people have centuries of social-structure
| adaptation to deal with the stress of being
| systematically oppressed (by local elites, colonial
| overlords, ...).
|
| E.g. money gets shielded by community institutions (such
| as local religious organizations) that are harder for
| elites to steal from than individual peasants, and then
| those act as a kind of social safety net in hard times.
| Extended families/clans build social bonds through e.g.
| marriage and baptism, and help each-other.
|
| Often there are severe social problems in rural peasant
| societies: alcoholism, domestic violence, seasonal
| migrant labor keeping people away from home much of the
| year, corruption, ..., but people have also learned to be
| tough vs. some kinds of outside threats. But large waves
| in the world economy (or a large natural disaster or the
| like) also can overwhelm those defenses.
| danans wrote:
| I think we agree that many pro-social structures exist in
| poor and socially rigid societies.
|
| However these come at the expense of many liberties (i.e.
| religious) that are held as important in the more
| developed world. It's not clear that loss of such
| personal liberties would be an improvement in developed
| societies, even if it reduced the nominal divorce rate.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Liberties have always come paired with obligations to
| one's surrounding community, so there would be nothing
| new in this. We have a name for pure liberty or
| "liberation" shorn of any checks or obligations towards
| others: we call it _licence_ , and every increase in
| licence is ultimately a step towards bondage and tyranny.
| danans wrote:
| Those obligations are strong and operational in many
| places where religion isn't the center of civic life.
|
| There is nothing wrong with religion as a framework for
| teaching people about their social obligations, but it's
| hardly the only way to achieve that.
| rayiner wrote:
| I agree there is a trade off, but let's explore this a
| bit further. Who decides how much they value religious
| liberty compared to lower divorce rates? Decisions about
| these trade offs tend to be imposed from the top, by the
| elites. 2/3s of Americans still disagree with the Supreme
| Court ruling banning school prayer.
|
| When there is a trade off, who should get to make the
| decisions about where to strike the balance?
| danans wrote:
| > Who decides how much they value religious liberty
| compared to lower divorce rates?
|
| > When there is a trade off, who should get to make the
| decisions about where to strike the balance?
|
| Of course the Supreme Court when concerning anything
| involving the government making an establishment of any
| religion.
|
| The US isn't Saudi Arabia. As much as it's any American's
| right to practice the religion of their choosing, it's
| not in any religion's right to deny any individual - even
| in their religion - their individual liberties, or to
| impose their religion upon a person of another or no
| religion.
| philistine wrote:
| I think you're trying to think that stable families become
| less stable if their waged stagnate. They don't. What
| happens is that in aggregate, with stagnating wages, there
| are less stable (middle-class) families in society.
|
| For so-called _poorer countries_ , they are differently
| structured. It's tough to compare their family units with
| our rich nations.
| rayiner wrote:
| > For so-called poorer countries, they are differently
| structured. It's tough to compare their family units with
| our rich nations.
|
| But that's exactly the point! Prior to the 1960s
| revolution in social norms, families in poor countries
| weren't structured all that differently than ones in the
| US.
|
| I'm no Reaganite, but the fact is that the stuff the old
| "family values" conservatives said is pretty much the
| same thing my Asian immigrant parents told me growing up.
|
| Meanwhile, the data shows that Asian Americans who grow
| up in the bottom 20% have a 25% chance of ending up in
| the top 20% as adults. For white kids it's just 11%.
| That's a really big coincidence to hand wave away.
| [deleted]
| nradov wrote:
| The issue isn't with the absolute level of wages but with
| increasing income inequality (Gini coefficient) and the
| resulting loss of social status for young men on the lower
| end of that scale.
| [deleted]
| rayiner wrote:
| Income after taxes and transfer payments has grown for
| everyone since 1970: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:
| 1970-_Relative_incom...
|
| You can make a fair argument that the bottom 50% haven't
| gotten their share of productivity growth, but that doesn't
| explain why social indicators among the bottom quantile have
| gotten so much worse.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _Income after taxes and transfer payments has grown for
| everyone since 1970_
|
| And education, housing, and health costs has sky-rocketed,
| number of "essential services" to pay for (mobile phone,
| internet, severan "rentier" subscriptions) has increased,
| while job stability and availability for working and middle
| class has plummeted...
|
| But yes, the top 10%, the types to usually post at HN,
| never had it better.
| qeternity wrote:
| > while job stability and availability for working and
| middle class has plummeted...
|
| What?! The labor market has been so strong over the past
| decade that economists started to wonder if previous
| paradigms no longer apply (i.e. Phillips curve).
| rayiner wrote:
| But a lot of those requirements are manufactured. Germany
| has an advanced industrial economy with half the
| percentage of college graduates we do (just 1/4). So why
| do we need to act like "cost of living" for everyone has
| to include saving hundreds of thousands of dollars for
| college?
|
| I agree the top 10% have poor insight into what life is
| like for everyone else, but that cuts both ways. I think
| there's a real misperception of what income is necessary
| to maintain a similar quality of life to the past.
| danaris wrote:
| Whether it's manufactured or organic, it's still _real_.
| That 's the economic reality we all have to live with in
| America, so it doesn't matter whether Germany can operate
| just fine without the crushing college debt we have: the
| fact is, middle-class households in America have lost
| real wealth and purchasing power over the past 50 years
| because of this and a number of other factors.
| qeternity wrote:
| Just because it's real, that doesn't make it right.
| You're missing the entire point: maybe the issue isn't
| the gutting of the middle class, but the expectation or
| encouragement of higher "education" even if it is
| unnecessary for a huge chunk of people.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Income after taxes and transfer payments has grown for
| everyone since 1970
|
| It's grown for every group used in that breakout, but while
| it breaks out the upper income groups on relatively fine
| categories, it groups the bottom _half_ as one category.
|
| (It's useful for the graph's original purpose of discussing
| top-weighted inequality, it's not useful for the argument
| you are trying to make with it.)
| redmen wrote:
| The expectations are coming from our exposure to apps,
| articles, videos, education and opinions. It's not all in the
| author's head.
|
| I'm not at all sexually frustrated like most men and yet I
| still feel all of the same things.
| simulate-me wrote:
| Can't you invalidate all social commentary with this argument?
| Surely there are trends in society that can be remarked on
| generally.
| floodle wrote:
| I agree with what you're getting at. The prevailing belief in
| social science is that it's impossible to eliminate bias from
| your analysis of the world. In fact, I think many social
| scientists think that quantitative folks are kidding
| themselves when they think their clever statistical methods
| are free from their own personal biases.
| jcstk wrote:
| The author provided data and graphs to highlight the problems
| in America he believes are being caused by a root problem of
| society having low expectations for men.
|
| He doesn't provide any data to reflect what society's
| expectations are. Those are just his thoughts.
|
| That's a big distinction.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| The author provides no direct data, but cited a large
| number of peer reviewed articles and books. For example:
|
| In a fascinating 2012 paper titled Sexual Economics,
| Culture, Men, and Modern Sexual Trends, the psychologists
| Roy Baumeister and Kathleen Vohs wrote:
|
| "Although this may be considered an unflattering
| characterization...we have found no evidence to contradict
| the basic general principle that men will do whatever is
| required in order to obtain sex, and perhaps not a great
| deal more. (One of us characterized this in a previous work
| as, 'If women would stop sleeping with jerks, men would
| stop being jerks.') If in order to obtain sex men must
| become pillars of the community, or lie, or amass riches by
| fair means or foul, or be romantic or funny, then many men
| will do precisely that."
| wpietri wrote:
| Your theory is that all social commentary is handwavey
| general remarks? If so, yes, let's invalidate it.
|
| I think effective social commentary is mostly grounded in the
| personal, the specific, and the (thoughtfully) statistical.
| Otherwise it's very easy just to project one's biases onto a
| complicated picture. E.g., consider whatever it is that
| people think is "ruining the kids" these days. In the 1700s,
| you know what was ruining the kids? Novels:
| https://www.economist.com/1843/2020/01/20/an-18th-century-
| mo...
|
| It's similar to how arguments about "what God wants" go
| wrong. Researchers showed that when people talk about what
| their god wants, they're unconsciously consulting their own
| preferences: https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-
| earth/creating-god-i...
|
| With broad social argument, it's easy to introduce all sorts
| of fallacy. Humans aren't really equipped to reason
| intuitively about things at this scale. Especially if the
| point is to persuade and/or entertain, simplifying into broad
| "logical" arguments can paint false pictures. Andrew Gelman
| wrote about this today:
| https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2022/04/24/the-
| perils...
| simulate-me wrote:
| The error in your line of thinking is that you assume
| humans are better interpreting statistical evidence than
| they are broad logical arguments. I don't see any evidence
| of that.
| wpietri wrote:
| It's not a error until a) you show that's the case, and
| b) it's material to my point.
|
| Honestly, I don't think people are "better" at that (if
| such a fuzzy construction can have a useful meaning). But
| I do think they are _more careful_ with it because it 's
| harder to get right and more easy to visibly get it
| wrong. It's fine with me if expecting more concreteness
| just drastically reduces the total amount of social
| commentary. Even if it dropped by 99%, we'd still have
| more than we needed.
| abrahamepton wrote:
| These expectations go both ways: it used to be that most jobs
| were stable, long-lasting and well paid. I live in a 100 year old
| house in Seattle whose first occupants were an immigrant janitor
| and his homemaker wife. Today most of our neighbors are lawyers,
| architects and other professionals because those are the only
| jobs that pay well enough to afford a house in Seattle.
|
| It's really no surprise that if your only options for work don't
| pay much and demand a ton, you're not gonna be too invested in
| that work. If you don't see how you can build a stable life for
| yourself through work...why work?
|
| Expectations go both ways. We used to expect people to work hard
| at one job that a household could survive on. Such jobs basically
| no longer exist outside of tech or law, so it's natural that
| other behaviors change too.
|
| And to the author's fevered insistence that nobody can talk about
| this...I suggest talking to people. This is a very common
| discussion on the left, outside of his weird caricatures.
| sunjester wrote:
| Giving birth to a baby without being married is a religious
| point-of-view.
|
| I am supposed to believe that a "sociology professor at
| Princeton, and Kefalas, a sociology professor at St. Joseph's
| University" can somehow convince me that he knows what a "low-
| income woman" thinks or does in her life. I've lived around "low-
| income women" my whole life and I haven't figured it out.
|
| "The conventional view is that a lack of money leads to out-of-
| wedlock births."
|
| Whose conventional view? This is not the view of poor people.
|
| "Today, one in six American men between the ages of 25 and 54 are
| unemployed or out of the workforce altogether: about 10 million
| men.", the book this came from was written by a conservative
| scientist from Iowa. I tried to check some of the stats and every
| one of them seem to be wrong.
|
| This link outright proves there are not 10 million men unemployed
| in America.
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/193244/unemployment-leve...
| So who's statistics are right?
|
| This is a horrible article that seems to do nothing by try and
| place blame rather than provide a solution to a problem that does
| not exist. I will go as far as to say this article is quite
| racist. The article says "American" men but then only targets
| white American men in their statistics. Which is it, American men
| or white American men?
|
| This is a poorly written article based on personal views and
| statistics that don't even target the proper demographics of the
| content of the article. Unbelievable.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The best analysis I have seen makes an interesting case that we
| are essentially still in shock from entering a post-marriage-norm
| society.
|
| All the institutions that promoted marriage are ignored, so
| people are testing the shark-filled waters and going it alone.
|
| Society-wide, this is self correcting over a couple centuries
| though, as the families which prioritize values are out-breeding
| those that do not (e.g. birth control is quickly segregating
| population growth by culture).
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| > Poor and working-class people follow suit. To the detriment of
| themselves and their children.
|
| Uh. I know the author grew up rough, but yeah, I'm going to need
| a citation on this one.
|
| This entire article is based on one huge assumption - everything
| was better when people felt compelled by society to get married.
| Was it? Was it really?
|
| Is that why there was an entire genre of boomer humour that can
| be condensed down to "hahaha, I hate my husband/wife?" Were there
| no social problems attributable to dysfunctional families in the
| 1960s and 1970s?
|
| Also this...
|
| > And a lot did use to be expected [of men]. There were social
| norms to work hard, provide, take care of loved ones, and so on.
| Today, these norms have largely dissolved.
|
| They really have not. Try going on on Tinder as man without a
| job, see how far that gets you. Now try it as a woman, you'll be
| shocked and stunned, I'm sure, to see that it's still considered
| far more socially acceptable to be a woman out of work than a man
| out of work.
|
| Gender roles are still very much baked into our society. I am the
| primary caregiver for my children, thanks to being a dev, I work
| from home full time, so I can do all the things that need doing,
| yet my wife, their step-Mum, has missed out on several jobs
| because people assume that she'll need to take too much time off
| if they get sick - right after she's told them that I'm the
| primary caregiver who works remotely so is at home for looking
| after sick kids, and during school holidays etc.
|
| People flat out don't believe her, because they're still stuck in
| the mindset that men provide, and women care.
| mw888 wrote:
| Charles Murray was on the ball for this as it was happening. He
| has very clear thoughts on it.
| archhn wrote:
| We're living in an utterly corrupt society. I know the middle
| class types on here don't like to hear it, but it's true. At the
| bottom of society, one can see clearly how bad it is. In the
| middle, you are insulated in your little suburban homes with your
| inflated sense of self-worth.
|
| Many people here are outright slaves. They are trapped in a
| predatory system that prevents them from gaining any dignity. It
| should be no surprise that some people say "fuck this," and drop
| out of the system or refuse to climb the corrupt social
| hierarchy. The millions of young men missing from the workforce
| are all speaking with their actions, "I don't approve of this
| system. I'd rather die than comply with it."
|
| Without an effective system of representation, this is how people
| express their discontent: drop out or commit crime. No one that
| believes in their country becomes a criminal. A precondition for
| criminality is always a loss of morale. That's why the system
| comes down on these "criminals" so hard, not because their crimes
| are so bad, but because they are dissidents.
|
| Some of you drive to work along streets full of homeless people.
| You are told that these are just drug addicts or problem makers.
| In truth, they are obsolete or noncompliant slaves.
|
| This can't last forever. One day we'll all be asking how we could
| let it get so bad, but it will be too late--I fear.
| dennis_jeeves1 wrote:
| >We're living in an utterly corrupt society. I know the middle
| class types on here don't like to hear it, but it's true. At
| the bottom of society, one can see clearly how bad it is. In
| the middle, you are insulated in your little suburban homes
| with your inflated sense of self-worth
|
| It's a fairly accurate representation of the way things are, as
| I see it.
|
| >This can't last forever.
|
| I think this was the way it was since time immemorial. Probably
| worse.
| archhn wrote:
| How many civilizations have lasted since time immemorial? You
| could have said this in Rome and you would have been right.
| You could have said this as a slave to the pharos and you
| would have been right.
|
| It never lasts forever.
| dennis_jeeves1 wrote:
| Ok, you are correct, to state it more accurately as long as
| civilizations ( in it's current form) exist, there have
| been slaves, and all indications are that it will not
| change. Unless somehow each individual somehow become
| physically powerful enough to stand up to large a
| collective of the 'enemy', slavery in some form will always
| exist.
| imranq wrote:
| Is there a country outside of the US that does not have some of
| the corrupt aspects you mention? Does this corruption pervade
| only at a national level or also at state and town and
| community layers?
| archhn wrote:
| The U.S. is a special case because of it's grandiose claims.
| We are supposed to be a nation by the people and for the
| people, a nation that is supposed to be a bastion of liberty
| against the dark tyrannical forces of the world that
| routinely attempt to enslave man.
|
| Corruption in this context is more severe than equivalent
| corruption in countries differently constituted.
|
| It's like a catholic priest who has sex with women on the
| side. Many men do that, but a priest is supposed to be held
| to a divine standard. Therefore the priest's actions are
| interpreted as a severe form of corruption,whereas the
| actions of a common man doing the same thing are perhaps not
| even seen as a bad thing.
|
| America is like a high priest of liberty. When there is
| corruption here, it's even worse than equivalent corruption
| elsewhere.
|
| Practicality speaking now, this is a huge problem because
| many people still believe that America is still abiding by
| its high ideals. This has the effect of making people blind
| to corruption. "That could never happen in America," is the
| attitude of a lot of people who still believe in the premise
| of this nation.
|
| I'll admit that these are difficult questions. I don't
| necessarily have the best answers. All I can really say is
| that there's a spiritual sickness here eating away at us that
| undoubtedly comes from a long accumulation of lies and
| betrayals that undermine our collective faith in the nation.
| asah wrote:
| That's not true! Poor people can escape if they live
| _perfectly_ and don 't make a single mistake and don't get
| unlucky. /S
|
| (Unlucky = health emergency, family emergency, wrong place
| wrong time, etc - advantaged people have accidents and mistakes
| but they have money and safety nets that catch them)
| archhn wrote:
| The number one cause of bankruptcy in the U.S. is healthcare
| costs. The horror stories I've personally witnessed are
| shocking. At the bottom of society, where I have dwelled,
| there's a whole undulating sea of broken toys. Ex engineers,
| disgraced financiers, all sorts of people that once were
| somebody in society, but fell down somehow into the land of
| the living dead; where there's no hope and mostly a silent
| endurance until we die in complete isolation.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| While I broadly empathize with what you're saying here, this:
|
| > No one that believes in their country becomes a criminal.
|
| seems completely indefensible. There are all kinds of criminals
| who see it as a legitimate way to exist and thrive within
| society. There are also many different kinds of crime,
| including white collar. Particularly when you live in a "got to
| get ahead" society, pretty much anything that can you help you
| "get ahead" ends up feeling legitimate.
| archhn wrote:
| The law is supposed to be the sacred foundation upon which a
| nation is built. Perhaps this view of law has been forgotten,
| which further emphasises my point about corruption.
|
| Breaking the law, in a serious way--I'm not talking about
| jaywalking--shows contempt for the foundational order of a
| nation.
|
| When I was younger, boy scout and all, I truly believed
| breaking the law was the worst thing one could possibly do. I
| was told how important the law is and that it deserves our
| utmost respect. From this mindset, breaking the law and
| becoming a criminal is percieved as a monstrous act--
| inexusable. That's how I saw things when I believed in
| America.
|
| Things have certainly changed, as your comment demonstrates.
| People now think it's more important to make money than abide
| by the law. The law is just seen as a referee, something to
| get around, not a noble set of rules that are laid down to
| govern our conduct for the good of us all.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| > Things have certainly changed
|
| It's hard to take this seriously. Crime as a way of life
| has a history dating back centuries, even millenia.
| rayiner wrote:
| This is an important read, especially this part.
|
| > This highly educated and affluent person prioritized stability
| for her own children. But refused to publicly endorse this value
| so that less fortunate children could also benefit from family
| stability.
|
| I'm from a rigidly socially conservative immigrant family that
| professes fashionably liberal values in public--imposing a double
| standard between "us" and "Americans." Meanwhile my wife's family
| is from a working class part of the Oregon coast. Watching and
| hearing about the family instability in these communities is
| heartbreaking. Half or more of everyone's parents are divorced.
| The kids float around seeking stability and the adults can't
| provide it.
|
| The article is right on the mark talking about the importance of
| social expectations for men. My family's rigid expectations have
| been such a blessing. It made a difference that the way to earn
| their respect was to get an education and a good job and support
| my family, and knowing that I would lose that respect if I did
| anything selfish to destabilize my kids' lives. The contrast made
| me realize that professing liberal social values that one doesn't
| live by harms society. It matters what we say about what's good
| and what's bad, what works and what doesn't. Creating a culture
| where men can attain dignity and social respect by providing for
| their family and staying with the mother of their kids matters.
| And creating a culture where men are told it's okay not to do
| those things creates harm.
|
| This isn't really a political point though it sounds like one.
| Social change has swept through America so thoroughly that the
| head of the "conservative" party is a three-times-divorced man of
| little character. The social and cultural guard rails have been
| removed from the whole country. But the impact is obviously felt
| most damagingly in parts of the country where men need to find
| dignity in working at the animal feed plant are harder hit by
| that cultural change than parts of the country where men can find
| dignity earning half a million dollars a year doing interesting
| knowledge work.
| CalRobert wrote:
| I dunno, my own childhood improved massively when my parents
| bad marriage ended, and my relationship with both of my parents
| improved. You can be a responsible parent while not staying in
| an unhappy marriage.
| softcactus wrote:
| My problem with takes like this is that they are based off of a
| really sanitized historical worldview, and they don't take into
| account any materialist factors. To say that Trump is a canary
| of our social change ignores all of the equally debaucherous
| presidents we had throughout the 20th century. In my opinion,
| the biggest change has been the lack of financial reward for
| the average person. The bar for achieving financial stability
| is much higher than it was say 40 years ago. It was much easier
| to raise a family on a blue collar income.
| m0llusk wrote:
| This seems like a lot of misplaced and irrelevant moralizing.
| Even in this article it is reported that men find little
| opportunity in labor markets that leave them with low pay and
| low respect. If low end jobs paid enough to support a family
| and might lead to higher pay over time then the situation would
| be different. Blaming this situation on expectations doesn't
| make sense when the labor market is clearly both critical and
| broken. Working class pay has steadily fallen for decades and
| economic mobility is near zero. In such an environment
| expectations and the attitudes of the upper classes have no
| bearing.
| defterGoose wrote:
| Right. If there is, in general, little to no chance for
| advancement in a profession, then there is little to no
| reason for a person (male in this case) to work hard to excel
| at it.
| dumpsterlid wrote:
| > Working class pay has steadily fallen for decades and
| economic mobility is near zero.
|
| Exactly, so long as this is true, every other discussion
| about the economics of the working class is a distraction
| from this
| bannedbybros wrote:
| what-the-grump wrote:
| Yay the patriarchy! :)
| raverbashing wrote:
| Actually the patriarchy traditionally would not see deadbeat
| dads with good eyes.
|
| There is plenty of reasons to be critical of the patriarchy,
| but in this aspect they were right.
| hardrcafe wrote:
| At least it has a track record of creating coherent,
| functioning civilization the world over since time
| immemorial.
|
| Can't say whatever we have today looks all that compelling,
| and I say this as a "winner" with a high salary, owned home,
| wife, and children.
|
| I think of a future beyond my ability to retire to
| Margaritaville. What future lies for my daughters and sons?
|
| A hedonist utopia that denigrates and denies the most basic
| human imperatives? To build a family? Why would I want that
| for them?
| UncleMeat wrote:
| "Functioning" is a word for it, I guess.
|
| I really don't think I'd describe a system where 50% of the
| population has basically zero rights to be "functioning."
| wpietri wrote:
| A surprising number of people in the 50% who get extra
| privileges seem fine with it.
| notpachet wrote:
| I think too much attachment to humanity, in its historical
| incarnation, is misplaced. Those periods of coherent,
| functioning civilization may end up just being the gentler
| slope of the asymptote before things started going nuclear.
| The same underlying tendencies have always been present in
| us, they just weren't manifesting at the same scale.
|
| "Coherent and functioning" sounds great, but in practice
| that coherence was usually bought on credit, by pushing
| negative social externalities somewhere out of sight. Those
| externalities are more easily ignorable when the boundaries
| of the world are smaller. Just push the trash into the
| river; just tie the witch up in the forest. Just shut up
| and marry, girl.
| wpietri wrote:
| I think this comment could be longer, but I think it has an
| in important point. The article ignores a huge change over
| that time period: increasing freedom for women from
| patriarchy.
|
| Any sort of "staying with the mother of their kids" argument
| has to acknowledge we can't just turn the clock back. The
| truth then and now is that a lot of men were not and are not
| good partners. (Anybody who doubts me should spend time
| reading Am I the Asshole. Not only are bad male parental
| partners rife, but they are often bad in ways that echo
| patriarchal beliefs that would have been perfectly acceptable
| back in the day.) Just as an example, marital rape was not
| outlawed in all 50 states until 1993, and it was legal
| everywhere until 1972.
|
| Young men do need plenty more education and pressure on how
| to do it right. But we must acknowledge it's a new kind of
| right. And I think we need new kinds of measures. "Family
| stability" in an unhappy or unsafe home is not something we
| should be aiming for.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| >Young men do need plenty more education and pressure on
| how to do it right.
|
| _People_ in general need more education on how to do it
| right. Women aren 't exactly free of guilt on this.
|
| >Anybody who doubts me should spend time reading Am I the
| Asshole.
|
| This only confirms men are more often outed as poor male
| partners. A forum full of anecdotes being labeled does not
| imply a large population of bad male partners. That's about
| as ridiculous as going to 4chan and implying a significant
| amount / too many women are promiscuous because it has
| enough examples of promiscuous women.
| wpietri wrote:
| Ah yes, think of the men!
|
| Single moms outnumber single dads 5:1. People in general
| need more education, but much more the men. Partriarchy
| left women holding the bag for a lot of things, so they
| were more prepared for a post-patriarchy world. Men will
| need more explicit support in learning to adapt to their
| new societal role.
|
| > This only confirms men are more often outed as poor
| male partners.
|
| Technically true, but unless you have some data to
| suggest it's meaningful, I think that's just a
| distraction. Reddit is 2/3rds male [1], so if anything we
| would expect more stories to be about bad women. But in
| the real world, women initiate the bulk of divorces [2].
| And men are more likely to be the kind of bad partner
| who, say, turns murdery [3]. So I think my inference that
| men are on average the worse partner and need more help
| is reasonable.
|
| [1] https://www.alphr.com/demographics-reddit/
|
| [2] https://www.whitleylawfirmpc.com/3-reasons-why-women-
| initiat...
|
| [3] https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-
| support/what-is-dom...
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| >Single moms outnumber single dads 5:1. People in general
| need more education, but much more the men.
|
| How is this relevant to your point? You might as well
| turn it around and ask why single moms are selecting men
| who leave them to be baby mommies. Birth control is still
| accessible to many and rape isn't so omnipresent these
| women didn't have a choice in the matter.
|
| >Men will need more explicit support in learning to adapt
| to their new societal role.
|
| They seem to be doing just fine when society incentivizes
| them to "pump and dump", and they end up doing just that.
| Again, it takes two to tango. It's not just "teach men
| not to do this", which school has been doing for decades.
| It is also "teach women not to accept this".
|
| >Reddit is 2/3rds male [1], so if anything we would
| expect more stories to be about bad women.
|
| This implies there is an in-group bias. Can you prove
| that? Furthermore, can you extrapolate such an in-group
| bias towards the select few communities which label these
| men?
|
| >But in the real world, women initiate the bulk of
| divorces [2]
|
| This doesn't say anything on its own except "women
| initiate the bulk of divorces". Something as simple as
| "there is a financial incentive for women to divorce men"
| or "men are more attached to their relationships than
| women" can just as easily counteract the premise and
| require further investigation.
|
| >And men are more likely to be the kind of bad partner
| who, say, turns murdery [3]
|
| And filicide is rising among women while dropping for
| men, with women being the primary offenders[0]. See, it's
| pretty easy to pull a statistic from a site which
| supports your PoV and paint a broad stroke. Just teach
| those darn girls not to kill their kids!
|
| But really, just look at your source: what does it say of
| the _total_ population? How many cases are there? How
| many "male perpetrators" are there in the total male
| population? Do I think as well of the source I randomly
| pulled? Of course not, it is so extremely superficial it
| says nothing of why this is happening.
|
| The premise rests on some "look, men are most on X, so
| this needs to be educated on!" despite the actual numbers
| and reflection in the whole population. If that were
| really the problem, you could teach women to practice
| less filicide, less bullying, and more.
|
| Worse, by focusing on men alone, you're creating a self-
| fulfilling prophecy that men are inherently bad or worse,
| instead of treating them like people. How someone who
| supports "dismantling the patriarchy" in name of having
| women be seen as people advocates this, is beyond me.
|
| >So I think my inference that men are on average the
| worse partner and need more help is reasonable.
|
| I think it's more reasonable to infer you're pressing an
| agenda by presenting information and then retroactively
| fitting your rationality into it. These things aren't
| saying what you think they are, and to come to such
| extreme conclusions is diminutive to men, women and
| humans as a whole. Nor do I believe you're helping women
| as much as you think you are by spreading this
| information.
|
| >Ah yes, think of the men!
|
| And everyone else. There's no need to be this
| reductionist. Again, it takes two to tango.
|
| [0]: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-08/mothers-
| murdering-the...
| civilized wrote:
| Is it patriarchy to expect men to support the families they
| create?
|
| (Sorry if I didn't get the memo, who can keep track of the
| latest things Deemed Problematic these days)
| [deleted]
| giantg2 wrote:
| "The article is right on the mark talking about the importance
| of social expectations for men."
|
| Those only really work if the opportunities are there for the
| person to succeed. If you have no hope of success, then people
| just give up.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >If you have no hope of success, then people just give up.
|
| Success doesn't come from hope. It comes from hard work and
| fighting every day for something better.
|
| Luck might help, but is neither required nor enough for
| success.
|
| I was from a poor background and fighting for a better future
| was the only thing that brought me some kind of success.
| giantg2 wrote:
| You can work hard and still lose hope. Just look at the
| suicide rates in the farming community. You'd be hard
| pressed to find a group that works harder than that. Hope
| is a huge factor. Hard work can only do so much if the
| system is failing and there's no hope.
| michaelscott wrote:
| It depends on the circumstance. I'm also from a poor
| background in a third world country (so super poor by
| Western standards), and although I did work both very hard
| and very smart, if I had not moved to a first world country
| there's no way I would have achieved much. Sometimes your
| environment can make it that hopeless, and I've seen it in
| many of the younger people back in my home country now.
| They've essentially just "checked out" of society, which
| leads to higher crime and unemployment overall.
| layer8 wrote:
| I bet you had hope that your fighting would be worth it.
| What the GP is saying that if you don't have hope then you
| have no incentive to work hard, because the lack of hope
| literally means that you don't believe there's a realistic
| chance it will lead to success. You need that belief to get
| going and to keep going.
| raydev wrote:
| That's great for you, but go tell that to someone who's
| lost all hope. If there's no hope then there's little
| incentive to work hard.
| lolinder wrote:
| True. But people also just give up if they're constantly
| _told_ that all the opportunities are gone, whether or not it
| 's true. If you combine "there are no opportunities for me"
| with "there are no expectations for me", you get "I'll do
| nothing".
| mountainriver wrote:
| Yes, opportunity is a belief, in reality there are plenty
| of opportunities, it takes imagination and hope
| DeathArrow wrote:
| It takes imagination and determination. Finding the
| windows when the doors are closed. Not giving up on
| failures.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Unless you're locked in a room with no doors or windows.
| giantg2 wrote:
| It depends if they're realistic or not. Without that, the
| hope portion disappears.
|
| Then one has to weigh if the job is worth it. With the
| high cost of modern living (shelter, taxes, healthcare)
| one might decide it's better not to work and just rely on
| assistance programs (I know someone like that).
| giantg2 wrote:
| Even if you have expectations, many opportunities may be
| gone. Just look at the lack of non-college work in the US
| that pays a living wage. Now try to get one of those jobs
| if you're competing against others who have no criminal
| history if you have a minor one.
|
| I have a job as a dev and even I'm tired of this treadmill.
| Taxes, COL, healthcare, etc. No time/money to do the things
| I want. No real career, just a job. Lies and discrimination
| at work. I don't blame others for giving up when their
| circumstances might mean that's the best option for them.
| influx wrote:
| What are you talking about? Just try and find a plumber,
| carpenter or contractor that isn't backlogged for months.
|
| There's a ton of really good blue collar jobs, often
| where you are your own boss. Unfortunately, society is
| pushing everyone to college.
| giantg2 wrote:
| This is really only true for certain locations. Also, to
| be your own boss means you have to understand how to
| obtain the licenses, start the business, etc. Many of the
| people who could do the actual job may not be able to the
| overhead to be their own boss. The companies do
| background checks and most don't really train. The
| overall percentage of these blue collar jobs are a much
| lower percentage than they used to be. So there's more
| competition. Good luck getting hired with even a minor
| criminal record or it you don't have a driver's license.
|
| I would quit my job today if I could make $100k
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Sort of.
|
| Many trades here in Australia spent two decades employing
| apprentices in insufficient numbers, for whatever
| reasons, to meet projected requirements.
|
| Now we have insufficient tradespeople to meet demand,
| blowing out wait times to things like "not gonna happen
| this year mate" to repair a roof, and 7 months to
| fabricate new windows. The builders, roofers, and
| glaziers that do exist would prefer to work on green
| fields developments where they can do the same thing 50
| times without moving their tools and equipment further
| than next door, so prices on minor repairs to existing
| houses have increased by a factor of "don't want the
| work, multiple the cost by five and quote at that" and
| that capacity is being eaten up by people borrowing
| $700,000 to fully renovate.
|
| It doesn't help that the building and fabrication trades
| have been run almost entirely by obnoxiously unbearable
| pricks, and when you spend twenty years telling everyone
| bullying isn't ok, is it any wonder young people don't
| want to do physically demanding work in terrible
| conditions working with obnoxiously unbearable pricks?
| When it's -10 degrees C outside, it's minus -10 in your
| work environment, when it's 40 plus degrees C it's 40
| plus degrees in your work environment, and people rarely
| make big changes to themselves, so here we are.
| fartcannon wrote:
| It's possible that most people just dont want to be
| plumbers, right? Maybe they would like a chance to do
| something they think is more interesting.
|
| To suggest people just do the thing that makes them money
| highlights another problem if you ask me.
| lolinder wrote:
| The question at hand is whether there are opportunities
| for people to make a living and support a family, not
| whether everyone can have a dream job. For the majority
| of humans throughout time, work has _never_ been
| something that people do because they couldn 't think of
| anything they'd rather be doing. It's always been a means
| to an end.
|
| Your comment suggests that it's not opportunities that
| have been lost in recent decades, it's that the younger
| generations' expectations for what life _owes them_ have
| changed.
|
| That's not necessarily a bad thing, to a point. But it's
| not accurate to claim that the lack of dream jobs out
| there means that there are fewer opportunities for
| gainful employment than in generations prior.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I think I'd rather be a plumber or electrician than a
| dev. I'm so tired of all the BS at work. At least in
| those jobs you aren't sedentary and you actually get to
| see the positive impact you make on someone's life. Sure
| you might get some difficult customers occasionally, or
| be dealing with literal shit.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The fact that people long for fun and interesting jobs
| that don't exist, is indeed a sperate problem.
|
| It does not negate the fact that there are high paying
| jobs available without college degrees.
| VLM wrote:
| > Just look at the lack of non-college work in the US
| that pays a living wage.
|
| A problem that doesn't exist. Plenty of that work out
| there.
|
| Try to get a custom 3-phase power line run in the
| datacenter. Average age of electricians is about 55
| around here. Nobody goes into the trades because the
| trades will "destroy your body before you're 35" yet all
| the thin healthy tradesmen around here are mid-50s
| boomers. Hmm. The union local total compensation package
| for mere journeymen is a hair over $65/hr because of
| mandatory health care and retirement extras that most
| people can only dream of, but even the takehome pay alone
| is still over $45/hr. On one hand that's only about twice
| what you'd get for emptying trash cans at Costco. On the
| other hand, you don't have to empty trash cans at costco
| AND you get a cooler more interesting job. Either way
| that power line isn't going to install itself.
|
| The real mystery is all it takes to be an electrician is
| ambition, low time preference, agency, self discipline,
| motivation, concentration and study, and especially
| staying away from drugs, so how do you find people like
| that in a culture that glorifies the opposite and
| vilifies those values? Well, you don't ... thus they end
| up very unsuccessful in life and my power line ends up
| not installed.
|
| If doing what you are told leaves you unsuccessful, maybe
| time to start distrusting those people when they give
| life advice. That's going to be the real turmoil and
| rebellion point in the next decade. "We were promised all
| our lives that self destructive behavior and self
| destructive beliefs would lead to a pleasant mirage."
| fzeroracer wrote:
| > Nobody goes into the trades because the trades will
| "destroy your body before you're 35" yet all the thin
| healthy tradesmen around here are mid-50s boomers.
|
| I just wanted to point out that this is quite literally
| textbook survivorship bias. Instead of looking around and
| talking to the people that made it that far, you should
| try talking to those that didn't.
| giantg2 wrote:
| To be fair, I feel that the sedentary lifestyle of being
| a dev is just as damaging. Heart surgery vs joint
| replacement basically.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| >especially staying away from drugs
|
| We know very different electricians ;). But seriously, I
| wonder how much of the 'conservatives are uneducated!'
| trope that gets thrown around in conversations like this
| is due to conservatives in high school placing a higher
| value on providing for a family, doing the math, and
| consequently getting into the trades rather than
| university.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Or maybe that the majority that possess those traits go
| into other higher paying jobs that also require those
| traits. Starting around here for electricians is closer
| to $25-35. If you are concentrating and studying the NEC,
| you could alternatively study to be a dev and make more.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Union elections in the bay area rake in about 140k/year
| after 5 years on the job. Highly competitive, but no
| college required.
| giantg2 wrote:
| That's in a HCOL and about half the starting salary of a
| FAANG dev, probably about the same as starting for a non-
| FAANG dev in that area, right?
|
| If I could be reasonably expected to make that in my area
| (Philly region), then that sounds great and is
| substantially more than I make as a dev.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| That sounds about right.
|
| Im not saying it is the best job in the region, just
| demonstrate that blue collar jobs can still provide a
| comfortable living with such salaries.
|
| I would expect it to scale by regional COL.
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| I think it actually means redefining success. Today, success
| means having disposable income, but that's not the success
| that children need. They need stable households, and that can
| be obtained even with low paying jobs, though obviously it's
| easier with high paying jobs.
|
| But it's impossible if the will to work isn't there, and the
| only way to get that will is to instill a good work ethic and
| proper, family-oriented goals.
| giantg2 wrote:
| If both parents are spending all their time at work just to
| make ends meet (or workaholic executives), how can that be
| stable? When will they have time to guide and develop the
| child?
| coryrc wrote:
| > that can be obtained even with low paying jobs
|
| Minimum wage workers can't afford rent _anywhere_ in
| America. There 's no stability to be found for low-paid
| workers.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/15/homes/rent-affordability-
| mini...
| VLM wrote:
| Its innumeracy propaganda.
|
| There are no minimum wage jobs where I live anymore, and
| I live in a lower cost of living area (not Manhattan or
| silicon valley, LOL). I'm not surprised no one can afford
| rent at $7/hr when no one can find a job paying $7/hr.
| Costco has a sign up paying $19/hr to empty trash cans
| and they can't hire people at that low of pay and the
| article claims its a tragedy that a middle tier single
| bedroom would take $21 as a nationwide average; although
| I live in a lower cost of living area.
|
| The government "Fair Market Rent" is sort of median
| quality housing. If the goal is to demand that even
| people at the literal bottom of the barrel of income in
| the 0-th percentile live in 50th percentile housing, then
| who will live in the 0th to 50th percentile of housing. A
| goal of having the lowest percentile in any group meet
| median achievements is inherently impossible.
|
| There does not seem to be any actionable plan proposed;
| to me its obvious that raising the legal minimum wage
| from $7 to perhaps $8 will not improve anything if the
| absolute bottom of the barrel of jobs in low paying areas
| is already $19/hr AND there is no supply so there are
| unfilled jobs. Another obvious proposal is building more
| housing to crash the price, and the ownership class is
| not going to tolerate that behavior LOL.
|
| As a thought experiment, if the living conditions are
| indeed unlivable as the guilt inducing article proposes,
| fine, lets run with that theory that its true nobody can
| live that way, then how are so many people living that
| way?
| giantg2 wrote:
| 2% of hourly workers make federal minimum wage or lower
| according to BLS numbers. Many lower paying jobs
| (Walmart, McDonalds, etc) pay about $10 an hour. They
| generally don't provide benefits. So even if you get two
| jobs to fill a 40hr week, you're stuck with the medical
| costs. Good luck paying for housing and medical coverage
| (transportation, taxes, retirement, etc) at $20k per year
| in most areas. Hopefully you can get on assistance to
| help out.
|
| There are a variety of issues and possible improvements
| to help the situation, not just the two you mentioned.
| VLM wrote:
| That 2% consists of people like my teenagers, both of
| which cannot afford housing and medical coverage by
| themselves and as Dad, I'm personally quite well
| acquainted with how they get financial assistance (LOL).
|
| And no, McD does not pay $10/hr, I live in a low cost of
| living area away from the coasts and the sign on the door
| opposite my grocery store lists $15/hr right next to the
| sign that they're cutting hours due to lack of employees.
| On the coasts I'm sure its higher although cost of living
| is probably higher.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Your teenagers work fulltime? The BLS numbers for that 2%
| was looking at fulltime hourly workers. I'm sure there
| are plenty of part time people that would increase that
| 2%.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| That 2% also includes disabled people where they can
| legally be paid below minimum wage. E.g. Walmart greeters
| with downs sydrome...
| defterGoose wrote:
| So basically what you're saying is that there should in
| theory be no floor to QOL, but then tacitly agreeing with
| the hand-wringing about how society (a construct based
| almost entirely around QOL) is faltering?
| dumpsterlid wrote:
| > Costco has a sign up paying $19/hr to empty trash cans
|
| I am getting really tired of people casually talking
| about jobs like this as if they are easy. Do they require
| a ton of professional knowledge or skills? Nope. Are they
| way harder than your job? In all likelihood.
|
| I mean, all the proof you need is literally in the fact
| that Costco can't find workers willing to do the job for
| that wage. The conditions suck for how hard the job is.
| VLM wrote:
| The epitome of privilege is assuming everyone has house
| servants to empty their trash cans. My trash cans at home
| do not empty themselves, nor do I have my hired man do it
| for me.
|
| Yes, I admit elderly living in nursing homes do have
| hired help empty their trash cans.
|
| Is it a sign of society collapse that one-armed
| individuals and those lacking any upper body strength
| cannot live in the lap of luxury? Nah, they go be
| cashiers at the same store. Well, whatabout those too
| dumb to make change but too smart to get SSDI disability?
| Whataboutism has become tiresome and as such is no longer
| effective propaganda.
| bittercynic wrote:
| I have worked a job where emptying trash cans was one of
| my responsibilities, and it is nothing like emptying the
| trash at home. They're enormous, heavy, usually leaking
| putrid liquid, and you have to lift them above your head
| to dump them in a dumpster. Some of the putrid liquid
| will get in your hair every day, and you won't be able to
| get rid of the smell until you get to go home and shower
| in the evening. It's hard to appreciate how bad of a job
| it is if you haven't done it.
| convolvatron wrote:
| the worst thing about that smell is it follows you even
| after the shower.
| clearleaf wrote:
| I seriously doubt they "can't find workers." I have a
| friend who works at a rural Tim Hortons and he described
| to me the massive stack of applications he spotted as
| "thicker than the phone book. Like two new packs of
| printer paper." Despite multiple interviews per week
| nobody gets hired. They've been on a skeleton crew since
| last summer. I think it's a total crock that they can't
| find anyone. More like they can't find anyone good
| enough, and good enough means willing/able to do 4x more
| work than anybody with the same job had to do previously.
| I want to start my own million dollar paranormal
| challenge, but it's for anyone who can prove a non
| striking non startup company has suffered due to not
| being able to find workers. I don't think it's happened a
| single time since 9/11.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Speaking of innumeracy, how would a person afford to save
| for a homeloan deposit, while also paying for health
| insurance, rent, food, and vehicle maintenance. With
| kids? Might as well hang yourself, before the kids hang
| themselves.
|
| I'm in Australia, so the numbers are approximately
| similar, our minimum wage is $20.33 an hour, our public
| health care system had been eroded by successive
| governments, and never included non-emergency dental so
| you probably want to spend around $40 to $60 or more a
| week on health insurance.
|
| No one on $19 an hour is buying houses.
|
| If your minimum wage is $7 an hour, but the lowest paying
| job currently advertised is $19 an hour, let's just call
| the effective minimum wage $19 an hour, and base or
| assumptions off that.
|
| Many people _are living that way_ , sure, but, man, both
| the USA and Australia have turned to _shit_. Fuck being a
| young person today without the good fortune of being born
| with good genes in to a good family. People can 't find
| places to rent even in the small city I live in, families
| are living out of their cars, or in tents under bridges.
|
| In Australian! It's not like we're short on land, or
| wealth.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Half the issue is that people have been indoctrinated to
| expect home ownership and long for some golden age seen
| on TV that never existed.
|
| Home ownership was never universal in the US. It has been
| within a few percent of 65% since the 1960s[1]. It was
| always out of reach for the lowest earners, like those
| that make minimum wage.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home-
| ownership_in_the_United_S...
| coryrc wrote:
| First, it's not federal minimum wage, it's minimum wage
| for each jurisdiction. So Washington state being $11 or
| whatever it is, not the federal min.
|
| Second, for some reason I believe the propaganda that
| city living is inherently less costly despite it being
| pricier everywhere in the USA, so I believe rich city
| liberals need to change zoning to allow cheap housing to
| be built.
|
| Finally, they're living that way by getting ostensibly
| making minimum wage, but with so high of commuting time
| and cost as to be making less per hour but working more
| than 40. Or by living in miserable conditions: in an RV,
| 8 people to a 3-bedroom house, etc
| giantg2 wrote:
| "First, it's not federal minimum wage, it's minimum wage
| for each jurisdiction. So Washington state being $11 or
| whatever it is, not the federal min."
|
| The BLS data was only tracking federal minimum. I would
| like to the state minimum wage earners, but that wasn't
| in that report.
|
| "so I believe rich city liberals need to change zoning to
| allow cheap housing to be built."
|
| I believe it's all due to preferences. The preference for
| sfh, preference for better schools, preference for low
| crime, etc. It's pretty cheap to live in many north
| Philly neighborhoods. Many people don't want to.
|
| I agree with the final part. I turned down jobs in
| college due to the commute cost.
| coryrc wrote:
| > Many people don't want to.
|
| They'd like their kids to go to school without bad
| influences. You can't watch your kids 24/7 so choosing
| the kind of people they'll be around is one of the few
| levers you have as a parent.
|
| Now, if we had a national ethos/culture which the
| government was empowered to enforce (like Denmark, Japan,
| etc) then it doesn't matter as much which neighborhood
| you live in. But living in North Philly is basically
| dooming your children, what we might call
| "intergenerational poverty".
| giantg2 wrote:
| Yes, and those empowered schools would be a much better
| fix than the one parroted around about just fix zoning so
| we can build more housing in the desirable areas.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| The funny part about expectations is they don't have to match
| reality to have an impact. If you raise a child telling them
| they have no opportunity, their chance of success is quite
| low.
| awillen wrote:
| That only works in one direction though. If opportunity
| doesn't exist, it doesn't matter if you set expectations
| that it does.
| DeWilde wrote:
| Still better to instill expectations even if opportunity
| currently does not exist. If it arises one day that
| person will do better.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Until then they'll be crushed and/or feel lied to.
| DeWilde wrote:
| I'm talking from experience, my drive to succeed helped
| me to take an opportunity when it came. Otherwise I'd
| probably be selling weed on the corner.
|
| Or you think its better to evade temporary failure by
| embracing permanent failure?
| giantg2 wrote:
| There's a difference between being ready to seize a
| _realilistic_ opportunity _if_ it comes along and being
| told that there will be opportunities if only they work
| hard. I 'm guessing that opportunity that came along just
| happened to better than the opportunity to sell weed on
| the corner, right? I'm guessing there are others who see
| an opportunity to work a low paying job as being less of
| an opportunity than selling weed.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I don't think it is nearly as bleak and binary as people
| make it out to be. If you look at the actual data, there
| is still a lot of opportunity for upward mobility. 60% of
| people who grow up in the bottom economic quintile
| improve their situation. [1] When thinking about the 40%
| that dont, there are a few notable facts:
|
| 20% of children in the bottom quintile dont graduate
| highschool.[2]
|
| 8% of men born into the bottom quintile are currently
| incarcerated.[3]
|
| The traditional advice to children for how to be in the
| 60% that escape poverty is still true. Stay in
| highschool, stay away from drugs and crime, and go to
| college if possible. If poor children can do this, their
| chances of improving are actually quite good and not at
| all hopeless.
|
| https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/~/media/imag
| es/...
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/figure/High-school-
| graduation-r...
|
| https://www.brookings.edu/wp-
| content/uploads/2018/03/es_2018...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Is it really better to never try than risk
| disappointment?
| hammock wrote:
| That may work for a single generation. And the child soon
| grows up and meets reality. We are in a situation that has
| been developing for multiple generations
|
| Edit: I agree with the replies and I'm not one for shirking
| personal responsibility to change your lot in life, nor not
| instilling an eye for opportunity in children. We are at a
| point where more may be necessary
| psyc wrote:
| I've thought about this a lot. It's so much more than
| "every generation thinks the next is awful" - that's too
| glib. By my count we've had 3 consecutive generations
| disaffected, disillusioned, and alienated. It's as if,
| figuratively speaking, everyone born after 1970 is a
| 'latchkey kid' because the parent archetype still hasn't
| come home or sobered up yet.
|
| Even still, it's best to teach kids that they have more
| say than any other individual about their own future, and
| that anything is possible. If you must teach them that
| the world is hostile, you must also teach them how to
| beat it. You wouldn't refrain from teaching them tiger
| evasion just because the tiger is probably going to get
| them.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Of course we can do more to have a robust economic
| ladder, but I dont think it is nearly as bleak and binary
| as people make it out to be. If you look at the actual
| data, there is still a lot up upward mobility. 60% of
| people who grow up in the bottom economic quintile
| improve their situation. [1] When thinking about the 40%
| that dont, there are a few notable facts:
|
| 20% of children in the bottom quintile dont graduate
| highschool.[2]
|
| 8% of men born into the bottom quintile are currently
| incarcerated.[3]
|
| The traditional advice to children for how to be in the
| 60% that escape poverty is still true. Stay in
| highschool, stay away from drugs and crime, and go to
| college if possible. If poor children can do this, their
| chances of improving are actually quite good and not at
| all hopeless.
|
| https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/~/media/imag
| es/...
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/figure/High-school-
| graduation-r...
|
| https://www.brookings.edu/wp-
| content/uploads/2018/03/es_2018...
| hammock wrote:
| I disagree with the headline in that chart. What I see is
| 60% chance (i.e. more likely than not) of mobility up or
| down
|
| Edit: you edited your post to be more than just a link
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I added a lot of text to get my point across more clearly
| hammock wrote:
| The old Brookings Institute factoid is that the vast
| majority of the poor who graduate from high school; get a
| full-time job; don't have a child before age 21 and get
| married before childbearing; move into the middle class.
|
| You've provided some good research. Still I wonder how
| quickly it becomes outdated in today's world.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| No Solution to this massive multigenerational problem
| involves teaching children to not try and give up.
| otikik wrote:
| The implication of "liberal values = high divorce. Conservative
| values = low divorce" might make sense intuitively (as one
| group claims to put more shame on it than the other), but until
| it is backed with data it is just "an impression".
|
| Here's my 2 minutes attempt:
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/marriage-divorce.htm#state_tab...
|
| I have sorted that list several ways (rate of divorce in 2000,
| in 1990 and average). Of the top five (Nevada, Arkansas,
| Oklahoma, Wyoming, Idaho) only Wyoming voted Democrat in 2020.
| The lowest five (Pennsylvania, Iowa, Illinois, Louisiana,
| Massachusets) Iowa and Louisiana voted Republican, the rest
| voted Democrat.
|
| That seems to go against the "intuition" that divorce is less
| prevalent amongst conservatives.
|
| The list also seems to show a steady general decline across all
| of the states in divorce rates between 1990 and now.
| lolinder wrote:
| Comparing divorce rates like that is very hard because where
| divorce is culturally stigmatized, cohabitation is _also_
| stigmatized. The result is you get a bunch of people who get
| married, have kids, find out they 're incompatible, and get
| divorced.
|
| In other states with different cultures, that exact pattern
| (including the kids) can play out but never end up in the
| divorce stats because instead of getting married the couple
| just lives together for a while. Once kids are involved the
| negative effects are much the same as in a divorce (minus the
| legal bills), it just doesn't show up in the stats.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Maybe for those men lucky enough to have families. A growing
| issue is the large percentage of men who do not and will likely
| never have families to ever take care of. If we think deadbeat
| dads unstable, the incel community is a madhouse.
| rayiner wrote:
| It's not a matter of luck--men in my dad's village in
| Bangladesh start families, have kids, and live relatively
| happy lives in poverty even most poor Americans could not
| comprehend.
|
| I don't think it's fair to call all these guys incels. As the
| article observes, most just have no expectations placed on
| them, and also have no way of attaining dignity and social
| worth through the avenues in life reasonably available to
| them.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| It is sunday morning. I'm at work (military). Part of that
| job is checking in with people at a half-dozen other
| locations who are also at work on a sunday morning. they
| just happen to all be hetero guys, which is not unusual in
| the military no matter the day. So I asked in our chat
| whether they had wives/girlfriends at home today. "No."
| "Nope." "My car is my GF" and "Rocking a peppi shirt under
| my uniform". These are single guys in their mid-twenties
| and thirties. They have jobs. Most are university-educated
| officers. They look good in their uniforms, especially with
| the medals. But they work sunday mornings because they
| don't have families and don't go out saturday nights. I
| worry about this trend.
| notacoward wrote:
| Also...
|
| It is Sunday morning. That means a lot of people are at
| church (and who is might be related to the demographic
| observation you've made). Is the message they're hearing
| one of hope or despair? Or are they not even listening?
| I'm not going to blame everything on religion, as
| tempting as that is, but for a non-trivial minority that
| might be part of who feels included or excluded and why
| they react as they do.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> Is the message they're hearing one of hope or despair?
|
| Despair. The average age at most churches now seems to be
| 80+, and those who are younger are there to support their
| older relatives. There is no chatting or mingling. Once
| the service is over it is time to begin the process of
| loading grandma back into the car. What I see of single
| people at church is the exhaustion common to all
| caregivers.
| treis wrote:
| Peppi shirt?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| The peppi (sorry, "pepe") le frog meme has become
| associated with the alt-right generally but the incel
| community specifically. I doubt he meant that he was
| literally wearing one as that would be a huge problem in
| our military. I take his statement to mean that he
| understands the question and its implication.
| tester756 wrote:
| >The peppi (sorry, "pepe") le frog meme has become
| associated with the alt-right generally but the incel
| community specifically.
|
| uh? by who and why? it's just meme that has various
| meanings
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepe_the_Frog#As_a_meme
| McLaren_Ferrari wrote:
| jonahx wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| What do you attribute this to? Is it mostly just
| lifestyle choice? Or would most of them prefer to have a
| wife/gf but don't have one for whatever reason?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| A stable job just doesn't compete anymore. Single
| heterosexual girls want guys with prospects and/or family
| money. Some of these guys are afraid of dating, afraid
| that something might go wrong that could impact their
| careers. Deployments have also changed. Soldiers don't
| date or even talk to local girls anymore. Interestingly,
| many of these guys are also stone-sober. Not recovering
| alcoholics. They just don't drink. They don't ever hook
| up at bars. That bar scene you see in every military
| movie never happens. They always seem to be on guard for
| situations that might hurt their career. COVID-related
| lockdowns haven't helped either.
| jdrc wrote:
| At 25 I guess they are not interested in a romantic life,
| overall. it doesn't happen automatically, it's a learned
| behavior that starts in teens
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Oh, they are interested. Military guys get caught up in
| romance/blackmail scams all the time. It is a big deal
| when it comes to security clearances/background checks.
| They occasionally go out to bars, usually at the behest
| of their married friends. A single guy with a well-paid
| government job just isn't a winner these days. Our unit
| padre told me about a "singles" event organized amongst
| some local units/churches a few (10?) years ago. Total
| disaster. 4:1 male/female ratio and many of the women who
| showed up were not technically single but rather "going
| through a divorce".
| imtringued wrote:
| You got that backwards. Teenagers are horny and want a
| "romantic" life in the bedroom. Once they get older they
| slowly lose that drive and finding a partner requires a
| huge amount of "activation energy".
| scruple wrote:
| > Interestingly, many of these guys are also stone-sober.
| Not recovering alcoholics. They just don't drink. They
| don't ever hook up at bars. That bar scene you see in
| every military movie never happens.
|
| Is that true in the enlisted ranks, as well, I wonder? I
| believe that I saw you mentioned in another comment that
| you were talking about officers.
|
| Anyway, I can tell you from experience that 20 years ago,
| around the bases I was stationed at, it was definitely
| still happening. We went out on the weekends, we partied
| hard, we hooked up, dated, some of them even got married,
| etc., with local girls from bars and clubs.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Moreso the officers, but its really all of the career
| people who are very careful about socializing. Those who
| intend to get out after a few years and try for better
| things in the civilian world, they tend to party hard.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Do they have other social life, or just their job? I
| would suspect we've changed into being less social, not
| seeing friends either (replacing it with other
| entertainment or stuff to do).
| gernb wrote:
| Could it be social life is harder now? I'm atheist so
| this is not for me but if the majority of people used to
| go to church they had at least one chance a week to meet
| people and not only just meet random people to but to get
| to know people over time.
|
| I believe many relationship form after you get to know
| someone casually over time (classmates, church members)
| but many people, myself include, stopped going to classes
| after college and don't go to church.
|
| That leaves at best dating sites but dating sites are
| super awkward because instead of getting to know someone
| first, like the examples above, you're instead in a
| situation where you're supposed to decide yes or no
| immediately ("do you want to date me?").
| Multicomp wrote:
| I would argue we are just as social as before, but our
| social needs are able to be satisfied in the short-term
| by entertainment more than ever before, which dulls us
| from pursuing slow-burning-but-high-long-term-reward
| rewards like a stable relationship/marriage in favor of
| high-dopamine, low-risk, convenient, low-effort rewards
| like immersive video games and ever-more-enamoring
| leisure options.
|
| In the 40s, what did a young man have as far as
| entertainment options? Books, theaters, cigars, racing
| his motor vehicle with friends, going to horse races,
| hanging out in bars, finding a public telephone box to
| call someone, etc.
|
| In the 80s, 40 years later, you had all of the above, as
| well as basic 8-bit arcade machines (more social because
| of the high score aspect, going to the arcade with
| friends etc), then the advent of the IBM PC and cohorts
| (yes HN I'm skipping the PCs that beat IBM's product to
| market, hand wave with me please) which enabled computer
| games with interactive stories and explorations, as well
| as home media and basic, basic internet connectivity
| (BBS, Usenet etc.)
|
| 40 years later in 2020, we have all of the above plus
| social media, greater fidelity movies, television shows
| streamed on demand, the interactivity of the web has made
| itself available in our pockets in the form of
| smartphones, smart watches, and tablets, we have virtual
| reality headsets for even more immersive UX, and all of
| this is before said social media platforms and app makers
| started their algorithm iterations in earnest to increase
| engagement and maximize distraction/user attention time.
|
| In the span of 80 years time we haven't gotten less
| social by nature, but the sheer amount of engaging
| dopamine hits we can get from entertainment has gone way
| up versus ye olde library book or baseball game, so the
| boredom factor that pushed us to hang out with friends
| and eventually pair up with someone special is much
| lessened.
| kzrdude wrote:
| We mean the same thing for sure. I agree.
|
| I think even media has evolved to become less useful for
| meeting people. Of course because of the technology shift
| from simultaneous viewing/broadcast to on-demand.
|
| Watching movies at the cinema -> you can/want to go with
| friends. Watching netflix -> you can't watch with anyone
| except a close partner, because everyone has their own
| progress point to continue from in whatever series they
| are watching.
| [deleted]
| noisy_boy wrote:
| Military marriages are double hard due to the nature of
| the job. Couple that with broken marriages being more
| like the norm, one can't blame if they don't want to risk
| their mental and financial stability.
| bredren wrote:
| Do they play video games?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Yes. They also use telephones, eat fast food, watch
| sports, drive cars and do all they other thing that 90+%
| of heterosexual males do. Blaming video games is just the
| latest intergenerational boogieman. 30 years ago it was
| too much television. 50 years ago it was too many comic
| books. In every generation there is a new media
| technology that the old blame for corrupting the young.
| knicholes wrote:
| While an answer in the affirmative would tickle your
| confirmation bias activations, I'll counter with my
| anecdote that I play "video games" and have been happily
| married for 13 years and have two kids.
| dgfitz wrote:
| 3 kids here and I'm tickled pink that I just landed a
| PS5, married 9 years.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| From the wives I've talked to, a husband who is at home
| playing video games is still _at home_ , which is a
| significant step up from 'at the bar' or any number of
| escapist male activities that involve dads spending free
| time far away from their children.
| jdrc wrote:
| In any case it would be a symptom
| ratww wrote:
| According to statistics websites, around 65% of adults in
| the US play video games, and around the same percentage
| of residences own gaming devices. At this rate, playing
| video games could be a "symptom" for virtually anything
| imaginable.
|
| You probably mean stereotype.
| jdrc wrote:
| i mean a symptom of having too much time because of no
| family. dont think there is much stigma around gaming
| beyond old people
| ithkuil wrote:
| Could it be selection bias?
| BurningFrog wrote:
| OP wrote "lucky" but probably meant "fortunate".
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Can you define the difference (Serious question)?
| mrwh wrote:
| My sense of the distinction: luck is rare. Not everyone
| can be lucky, by definition. Fortune doesn't have the
| property. For example, one could say that everyone who
| grows up in a liberal democracy is fortunate.
|
| Something which requires luck to achieve is by definition
| unachievable by most. Something which requires good
| fortune could, in a better world, be had by all.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >Not everyone can be lucky, by definition.
|
| That's true only for people who play the same game, the
| same time. But life is a series of countless games, so
| both the law of probabilities and observation of people
| around make me think that nobody can be unlucky forever.
|
| Having luck and taking advantage of that luck are
| different things.
| [deleted]
| fartcannon wrote:
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Some of them call themselves that.
| hardrcafe wrote:
| fartcannon wrote:
| Who cares what they call themselves? That's theres to
| decide. Do you want them in or out? If you want them out,
| call them incels, if you want them in, give them the
| dignity of any other human and call them men.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Incels are a part, not all of that group. But they are a
| percentage. A greater number of perpetually single men,
| those who do in fact want a family as opposed to thise who
| chose not to have one, does mean a greater number of
| radical incels.
|
| Even without going full radical incel, a great many single
| males lose hope and lose thier drive to achieve. I work
| with some. They just dont care about
| work/money/stability/future in the same was as people with
| dependant families.
| fartcannon wrote:
| recuter wrote:
| I'm curios if there is a female equivalent of a radical
| incel?
| empathy_m wrote:
| /r/femaledatingstrategy has an interesting option that
| may have similar levels of insularity and cultural
| integrity.
| jason0597 wrote:
| /r/FemaleDatingStrategy
| Tade0 wrote:
| It's actually how the term was originally coined - the
| first person to identify as an incel was a woman. Perhaps
| without the "radical" adjective, though.
|
| As a brother of two sisters I would say that
| (unsurprisingly) the proportion of incels is the same in
| both sexes, they just express it differently. Women
| incels are not nearly as visible, but they're there.
|
| One thing they do have in common though is a tendency to
| get fixated on someone/something, so they're over
| represented in IT.
| blueflow wrote:
| unpopularopp wrote:
| /r/TwoXChromosomes/
|
| (which is funnily one of the most toxic subs I have ever
| seen but reddit dare to touch it)
| nicolas_t wrote:
| I haven't been there much but the few discussions I've
| seen there weren't that toxic, nowhere near Red Pill...
| I'm curious if you have any examples?
| ryan93 wrote:
| incels commit almost no violence against women compared to
| men in relationships
| bombcar wrote:
| Everyone enjoys identifying why "bad people" are not "like
| me" and then put them in a group that is the "other".
|
| This causes unintentional and eventually intentional
| coverups when presented with someone "in your group" doing
| something obviously wrong.
| secondcoming wrote:
| How does violence in hetero relationships compare to those
| of same-sex relationships?
| benmmurphy wrote:
| I think in lesbian relationships it is higher than in
| heterosexual relationships. Don't have any good links off
| the top of my head. But here is a BBC article which
| claims it is higher in same sex relationships:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29994648
|
| Male violence is quite high stakes so I could see if you
| have two people who carry out lower stakes violence then
| you could end up with higher rates of violence.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| A large supply of men who DGAF and don't have much holding
| them down is how you get really serious social instability.
|
| They might not be beating their wives but let it roll
| unchecked for 20yr and it gets bad.
| noasaservice wrote:
| It's not about "dont give a fuck". This is about
| intergenerational poverty, and the costs that we all will
| have to pay because the elites decided to destroy social
| mobility for the poverty-stricken classes.
|
| When you are born and live in poverty, hold jobs that
| amount to minimum wage or tiny bits above it, have no way
| to *see* a future of any sort of success; happiness,
| alcohol, drugs, and sex are the primary forms of feeling
| good or not feeling pain....
|
| Yeah, you're going to have massive problems at a societal
| scale.
|
| The elites of this country, along with governments
| bribed, gerrymandered, and installed by said elites made
| the volitional changes to social programs that keep
| people down in poverty. And we're living with those
| changes since Reagan went off about that "black welfare
| fraud woman". That was the start of poverty-austerity
| movement: the idea that cutting off most/all funding
| would get them to not be lazy.
|
| The credit system instituted in the late 80's only has
| further cemented the idea that "if you were poor now,
| you'll still be poor and we wont help you". And housing
| has gone stratospheric, as have all other bills. And
| insert homeless numbers talk here - homeless are used as
| a tool of the elites to show what happens if you don't
| play along monetarily.
|
| I'm honestly surprised that the political elites haven't
| instituted ST:DS9's "Sanctuary Districts"
| (https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sanctuary_District)
| . Out of sight, out of mind.
| hhjinks wrote:
| That's an entirely separate, perhaps even more dire,
| problem. And it undoubtedly compounds for those men
| intersecting both categories. But the passive men
| phenomenon is not directly caused by intergenerational
| poverty. That is evident by how men in all socioeconomic
| classes are "affected."
| etherael wrote:
| Do the elites really get to choose the degree of social
| mobility in their societies? Do you have any comparative
| figures to back this up or further data? All I have is
| anecdote having grown up in poverty in what would likely
| be considered a relatively left wing first world economic
| environment, and to the best of my knowledge, none of the
| kids I grew up with except me ever escaped poverty.
|
| Maybe it's wrong and I'd love to know if that's the case
| but from personal experience the only way I've seen out
| of poverty is interest in an in demand field leading to
| the building and maintenance of marketable skills that
| allow you to earn a living sufficient to attain economic
| escape velocity. That seems to me to be a whole lot do
| with luck at the ground floor. And fiscal and social
| policy can be as much of a burden as it is a boon all the
| way along the pipeline.
|
| That said, that escape velocity was directly mediated by
| both the tax burden of the jurisdiction coupled with the
| economic opportunities of the jurisdiction and at the end
| of the day it meant the correct choice was to leave for
| greener pastures, both lowering the necessary target for
| escape velocity as well as reducing economic drag getting
| there.
|
| In the meantime all those kids I knew back in the old
| neighbourhood are still there, mostly on subsistence
| handouts, firmly in poverty, and show no signs of that
| changing.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| The elites in the US lowered the top tax brackets
| considerably, and intentionally moved education funding
| from grants to loans in previous decades. Both of these
| moves feel like they have lowered social mobility, but I
| haven't seen studies.
| etherael wrote:
| Same thing happened to Australia where I'm from
| originally, and it doesn't seemed to have changed a thing
| anecdotally except of course the aforementioned escape
| velocity equation, and still not nearly enough to be
| competitive with the leaving option.
|
| Would be interested to see any studies that indicate
| conclusively that any of this stuff does any good, rather
| than just making those who are politically aligned with
| it feel good, for anybody reading this that knows, not
| necessarily just the respondent.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >It's not about "dont give a fuck". This is about
| intergenerational poverty, and the costs that we all will
| have to pay because the elites decided to destroy social
| mobility for the poverty-stricken classes.
|
| I'm sorry but that is just an asinine thing to say and a
| textbook case of solving "my pet issue will fix the
| world" thinking.
|
| Inter-generational poverty was the norm until the
| industrial revolution. While it certainly sucked for the
| people living it and we should definitively be taking
| steps to reduce it it is demonstrably tangential to
| societal stability.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| I don't know if I would call it exactly tangential to
| societal stability, since we have multiple historical
| examples of what happens when inter-generational poverty
| goes too far. And usually the end result is not pretty
| for those in charge.
|
| It seems easy to say that societal stability isn't
| dependent on social mobility until the lower class
| decides that it's time to bring out the guillotines.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| Men who DGAF aren't the same as "incels". You and GP
| aren't at odds with one another.
|
| And yes, it is somewhat ironic society is making the
| exact same mistakes it has before: forgetting how
| destructive a large population of uninterested young men
| is towards society, without ever having to be violent.
| meken wrote:
| Could you say more about this?
|
| What historical events are you referring to?
|
| I consider myself a disaffected male, and am curious to
| understand my situation from a historical perspective.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| Look up the societal collapse of Rome in particular. It's
| one of the most named and covered anecdotes. A few other
| societies follow similar patterns, internally collapsing
| and being taken apart piece by piece rather than
| aggressively overtaken. Wikipedia[0] names several
| societies (I don't keep sources at hand to my own
| discredit).
|
| It all has to do with incentives and the role of men in
| societies which to some degree still apply today. Stop
| giving men incentives to have families or any other
| reason to care about younger generations, and they stop
| having a reason to care for the future. Don't give them
| an incentive to care about the now (wives, partners,
| comrades), and they stop having a reason to care about
| the now.
|
| Not having people care for the future is a great way to
| make them live their lives as short-sighted and
| hedonistic* as possible, which further affects their
| reason to care about the now beyond themselves. Not
| having people care for the now is a great way to
| incentivize inner conflict and have a party rise to fill
| the gap.
|
| *: Hedonism on its own has a whole slew of other problems
| I'd rather not get into detail with, but for the sake of
| comparison, online dating apps' meat market approach
| hasn't exactly helped younger people obtain more
| satisfying relationships.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_collapse#Exam
| ples_of_...
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Surely importing a bunch of Goths and foederati that
| turned into bagaudae had something to do with it.
| morelisp wrote:
| The best thing about the fall of Rome is how you can read
| literally anything into it too many
| soldiers too many men, not enough solders too
| many immigrants not enough immigrants
| immigrants didn't integrate immigrants integrated
| too much not enough defense spending
| recession from too much defense spending lack of
| scientific knowledge proto-technocracy instead of
| realpolitik
|
| i.e. take your pick of too much like
| today not enough like today
|
| as well as the worst thing to happen to
| civilization not actually that bad
| imtringued wrote:
| Honestly, my favorite explanation is that gold currency
| is a ponzi scheme that forced the roman empire to conquer
| more and more gold bearing land until its territory was
| so large that it was difficult to defend while
| simultaneously invading new territory. The moment they
| failed to conquer an ever growing mass of land, they had
| to pay the army while all the wealthy people have hoarded
| gold and kept it out of circulation which destroyed the
| medium of exchange function of money and therefore forced
| Romans to issue additional coins with less gold to pay
| its soldiers as hoarded gold coins do not pay any taxes.
|
| Most people interpret inflation as obvious government
| mismanagement, I interpret it as an inevitability because
| of the inherent conflict between medium of exchange and
| store of value caused by using gold as currency.
|
| Saved money that is used as a store of value interrupts
| the circulation of money which then stops the payment of
| taxes which then forces the government to find a
| substitute for the loss of tax revenue. The answer is to
| separate the medium of exchange and store of value
| function into two separate "institutions". Cash is not a
| store of value, banks delegate the store of value by
| giving loans to producers of value i.e. companies and
| entrepreneurs. If you just save cash/gold, there is no
| guarantee anyone is going to produce value in the future.
| You are basically speculating that there are going to be
| people in the future that will gladly take your gold and
| then people act betrayed when that speculation didn't pan
| out.
| morelisp wrote:
| right, sorry, obviously I forgot not
| enough crypto
| Multicomp wrote:
| Thanks for posting this.
|
| Societal collapse is probably something most people
| desire to avoid, and if the large numbers of disaffected
| men are the 'canary in the coal mine' and symptomatic of
| a weakened society, then we as a society also want to
| come up with solutions to ameliorate that particular
| suffering as a part of strengthening society as a whole
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Society becomes a more dangerous and unforgiving place,
| and suddenly men have value as protectors and providers
| again.
|
| To quote Bill Burr "There are no feminists in a house
| fire"
| Multicomp wrote:
| I'm not GP and can only guess, and not even a
| particularly educated guess, but I will try, because I
| too am curious, and everyone knows the best way to get an
| answer on the web is to post a confident-sounding answer
| so someone can 'correct me' therefore giving me the
| actual information I'm hopeful to receive.
|
| I remember (and therefore don't have a source for) users
| on the web claiming the rise of fascism was enabled
| partly by strongman leaders engaging all of the
| disaffected men en masse to serve said strongman's agenda
| by offering them the things they wanted (respect, status,
| stability).
|
| If my tripping of Godwin's Law is on the right track,
| then the GP may be referring to Weimar Germany where
| Hitler was able to take control over a very quick
| timeframe, starting with disaffected men and eventually
| spreading the message to the general populace, taking
| over the country's government sans violence (though there
| was certainly violence and intimidation near the end of
| the Weimar government and probably before then that I am
| unaware of).
|
| Or, much more likely, the GP meant something else
| entirely, and I am Wrong On The Internet!
| theropost wrote:
| Good question. I wonder if this type of societal
| situation has lead to wars of conquest in the past. Is
| there research or studies on events like this? It seems
| like something that may be difficult to study
| historically, but who knows.
| Aunche wrote:
| IMO outrage about incels is just a socially acceptable way
| to bully. It's a way to find an excuse to express their
| superiority over others while masquerading it with concern
| over women's safety. You're never going to see someone mock
| a successful man who beats his wife.
| e2le wrote:
| It's confusing to me that it's socially acceptable these
| days to bully those who lack a sexual partner.
| ratww wrote:
| Hm, wasn't that always acceptable and common? The only
| difference today is that there's a shorthand to mock
| those people.
| fartcannon wrote:
| It's really gross. You can almost hear them spit when
| they say the word they've assigned this maligned group.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| It's not, and you're conflating the term incel with
| people whom lack a sexual partner. Incel is a label that
| people apply to themselves that carries a whole lot of
| baggage, anger and a mixture of racism/sexism.
|
| People that lack a partner are not incels, but incels
| lack a partner. Please spend a few minutes looking up
| what an incel actually is and what it means.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| At least initially, when people used to make fun of
| incels, it was specifically in reference to "the
| government MUST find me a girlfriend" types, but it seems
| it's frequently 'genericized' to people who don't have a
| sexual partner, regardless of if they're even interested
| in it in the first place.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Not that confusing, really. I've spent decades unable to
| find a sexual partner. I'd also make a concerted effort
| not to fall into the conclusions and habits of thought
| found in those getting bullied as 'incels', and in fact
| hooked up on Reddit of all places and am in the home of
| my lady friend now, working with her on various stuff and
| steadily building lovemaking skills (we're on the older
| side and there's a lot going on so opportunity isn't
| always there).
|
| I would lovingly and determinedly bully those who are so
| weak that they can't face the reality of bad conditions
| and their own inadequacies, those who show an emotional
| need to behave like they (just as they are) merit a
| sexual partner, and this not happening means women are
| evil scheming monsters who conspire to ruin the world and
| must be stopped and/or reduced to Gorean slavery for
| their own good as they're not really people. I'd bully
| those incels all day long. They are harming themselves by
| their own stubbornly held rationalizations and need to
| cut it out.
|
| Properly having a sexual relationship means having a
| relationship, very likely with an opposite-sex partner if
| we're talking hetero incels, and it's not easy. I'm with
| a woman who is observably smarter than me and I'm a
| techie nerd. There are things we have in common, but
| there are also ways that we just don't operate the same.
| There's strengths I have that she doesn't (not physical,
| either), there's strengths she has (and sometimes expects
| out of me) that I don't, and won't. The male/female thing
| is compelling and interesting, but it's impossible to
| reduce to 'we are actually the same' 'cos we ain't :)
|
| When you get anybody concluding 'therefore the enemy sex,
| being incomprehensible, is simply evil and must be
| destroyed rather than reasoned with', you gotta bully
| those people or they will ruin it for us all. They are
| being intellectually lazy and wrong, and causing damage
| and making it harder for everyone, and we can't afford
| that kind of wrong.
| imtringued wrote:
| That sounds like a recipe for people becoming violent and
| agressive to avoid the stigma of being seen as weak. You
| know, like the taliban.
| imtringued wrote:
| It's the modern "virgin" insult but worse because they
| are supposedly virgins who have been rejected by a lot of
| girls. They aren't virgins for a lack of trying.
| scythe wrote:
| Much like radical identity politicking Twitter users, the
| cultural impact and attention-getting of "incels" far exceeds
| their actual frequency in the population, and is frequently
| magnified for the purposes of scaremongering. It's not rare
| for radfems to cry "incel" whenever someone has a complaint
| about the new libertinism, just as it isn't rare for #metoo
| opponents to complain about "cancel culture" when someone
| gets in trouble for committing an actual crime.
|
| The vast majority of people have more quotidian difficulties.
| The fact that liberal tabloids and influencers are eager to
| refer to rich and famous men as "incels" when they obviously
| can't be reveals that the word is just an insult in many
| cases, not a product of a serious analysis of society.
| DeWilde wrote:
| Is that really an issue? If you are a stable personality
| finding a mate isn't that much of an issue. Especially today
| with high mobility and dating apps if you put your back to it
| you can find a partner.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> If you are a stable personality finding a mate isn't
| that much of an issue.
|
| So those without mates are possibly not stable? Good luck
| finding a date if you work in an predominantly male area
| such as a northern mining town or military base. Good luck
| funding a mate if you are stuck in a bad job/career. Good
| luck funding a mate if you are stuck taking care of
| disabled/elderly family members. A stable personality
| guarantees nothing.
| DeWilde wrote:
| > So those without mates are possibly not stable?
|
| Of course not. You can be stable and not be interested
| for a mate. Or as you pointed out, there can be huge
| friction between a person and their mate because of a job
| or circumstances.
|
| But aren't those cases a minority, a exception to the
| rule? Even people in the military or working in extreme
| areas don't do that most of their lives. And this isn't
| something new really, frontiersmen and sailors faced same
| issues in the 20th and 19th centuries (and since forever
| really).
|
| I was thinking about a people who are stable and also
| have a chance and will to find a mate.
| Helitioo wrote:
| We need to find a better reason why this happens. I don't
| believe it's liberal social values which are not lived by.
|
| First of I would believe it's an educational problem and second
| it's a 'who cares' problem.
|
| There are plenty of areas/ghettos of low income and low
| education around.
|
| The blog also contains the following:
|
| "The people with the most money and education--the class most
| responsible for shaping culture and customs--ensure that their
| children are raised in stable homes. But actively undermine the
| norm for everyone else"
|
| How do they undermine the norm? They don't do this on purpose
| they are also just humans.
| yummypaint wrote:
| Schools in the US are funded by property tax. It makes no
| sense to do that unless the goal is to keep everyone in their
| place and prevent kids born into poorer areas from competing
| on equal footing with the children of wealthy people.
| bobcostas55 wrote:
| Schools in poor areas have higher funding than schools in
| rich areas, the property tax funding is only one part of
| where schools get their money from. See this report for
| example: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs95/web/95300.asp (it's a
| bit old but nothing substantive has changed).
| yummypaint wrote:
| The paper you linked to opens its summary of results with
| the following:
|
| "How do education expenditures vary with alternative
| district and community measures? Students in districts
| enrolling the lowest percentages of students in poverty
| and the lowest percentages of students in need of special
| education services received the highest expenditures."
| dgfitz wrote:
| I disagree.
|
| https://foxbaltimore.com/amp/news/project-
| baltimore/census-b...
| michaelt wrote:
| _> How do they undermine the norm? They don 't do this on
| purpose they are also just humans._
|
| I read a book [1] that argued the upper middle class
| _follows_ very traditional values (two-parent families,
| marrying before having children, having at least one adult
| working 40 hours a week) but doesn 't really _advocate_ for
| those traditional values.
|
| People in the upper middle class will praise the bravery of
| single mothers and say there's nothing to be ashamed of - but
| when it comes time to have children of their own, rarely
| choose that for themselves.
|
| It's not entirely hypocritical, of course; just because I
| think gays have nothing to be ashamed of, doesn't mean I have
| to become gay myself!
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_Apart_(book)
| mola wrote:
| Most people follow the conservative values, being "normal"
| is easiest. Its a matter of tolerance to other ideas or
| situation. Some either utterly rejects things that don't
| conform, or just wish to hide and shame them. Other people
| feel tolerance to differences is a good idea. And some
| people go full circle and want to shame anyone who doesn't
| completely identifies with the different ideas.
| mediumiqsad wrote:
| Probably because single motherhood is generally not a
| choice made willingly.
|
| There isn't any hypocrisy here, they don't endorse single
| motherhood because it's fashionable they "endorse" it
| because the alternative is worse.
| nyolfen wrote:
| they endorse it in order to reduce stigma; but reduced
| stigma leads to greater prevalence
| rajin444 wrote:
| Changing the meaning of words (i.e, reducing stigma)
| never works. It's a practice used by authoritarians to
| get what they want fast because it's cheap and relatively
| easy.
|
| I'm curious what the GP was told that makes them think
| the alternative to endorsing single motherhood is worse.
| The alternative to reducing stigma would be fixing the
| underlying issues that cause the stigma...in this case
| the lack of ability for a single parent to provide. We
| have plenty of resources to fix this, but they're
| disproportionately distributed in favor of those at the
| top. Funny enough, both the left and right at the top
| have solutions different than what I described. The left
| wants to destigmatize, and the right wants to shame
| (another cheap and relatively easy tactic used by
| authoritarians).
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Curious what you see as these worse alternatives?
| Abortion, adoption, abandonment, forced marriage, forced
| labor for child support?
| InTheArena wrote:
| There is a stigma in pushing stable values. In a very real
| sense, it's created by a media environment that eschews
| non-progressive (it's not liberal - at least in the USA)
| family structures.
|
| Let's face it, Homer Simpson is the face of traditional
| American family structures.
| fineIllregister wrote:
| > Homer Simpson is the face of traditional American
| family structures.
|
| The life available to Homer Simpson included a skilled
| job that he could obtain without a college degree (and
| also while being an idiot). He was able to purchase a
| four bedroom home in the community he grew up in and
| provide for his wife and three children on that one
| income.
|
| That was the norm, now it's practically gone. The lack of
| accessible economic opportunity, housing, and childcare
| are major barriers to having kids. If the same
| opportunities were available to my generation as they
| were to Homer Simpson's, this article wouldn't exist.
|
| No one I know is delaying or avoiding a family because
| "the media" didn't show them how to start a "non-
| prgressive" one.
| ipaddr wrote:
| So was Al Bundy or Dan Conner from Roseanne.
|
| The great reset theory many were down playing might be
| coming true where people don't own anything they rent
| everything from society
| yywwbbn wrote:
| > That was the norm
|
| I don't think you should blindly trust everything you see
| on TV. I doubt being able to afford a 4 bedroom while
| working in a low skilled job was ever the norm (even
| without being an idiot).
|
| In any case Homer was an engineer in a nuclear power
| plant, while he was probably quite underpaid, his income
| should had still been relatively decent.
| anonfornoreason wrote:
| When I was in my twenties, I thought having a family
| before you were in your thirties meant you were kinda
| dumb. That's what people who didn't have ambitions did.
|
| Fast forward to now and it is one of my very few regrets.
| I have three kids, but wish I would have started in my
| twenties and prioritized family more.
|
| When I was in my twenties, the homer Simpsons of the
| world were idiots. In my thirties, they were the ones who
| got it right.
| 88913527 wrote:
| It makes sense upper middle class wouldn't advocate for
| traditional values. They instead put up barriers to join
| the upper middle class. The book "Dream Hoarders" captures
| this well (restrictive zoning, parents helping finding
| internships, etc) [0]. If the playbook was available to
| everyone, then it would make maintaining your own position
| in the hierarchy all the more difficult. One thing the
| upper middle class fears the most is losing their position
| in society: the class provides solid income, but it isn't
| enough wealth to prevent being wiped out by a health
| incident or a bad investment.
|
| I'm paraphrasing, but Charlie Munger [1] recently said that
| our economic system depends on agony to get ahead.
|
| > what makes capitalism work is the fact that if you're an
| able-bodied young person and you refuse to work, you suffer
| a fair amount of agony. It's because of that agony that the
| whole economic system work.
|
| [0]: https://www.brookings.edu/book/dream-hoarders/
|
| [1]: https://junto.investments/daily-
| journal-2022-transcript/
| aga98mtl wrote:
| > How do they undermine the norm?
|
| Richer people have kids in their thirties, so the media is
| full of people in their twenties living it up. Poorer men
| have kids in their twenties and then they feel like losers
| for living the boring lifestyle of a responsible breadwinner.
| They want to copy the carefree lifestyle shown as "normal" by
| our culture.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Perhaps the best way to copy that lifestyle would be to,
| well, copy the choice to not have kids in their twenties
| (or teens). It's hard to see how the choice by some to
| delay kids is somehow undermining others.
|
| Conversely, the choice to have kids earlier brings its own
| set of benefits (having more physical energy is one that I
| wished for somewhat often and I think there's evidence of
| earlier pregnancies being lower risk).
| nkrisc wrote:
| It's sort of funny: they make the same mistake the "red
| pill" crowd makes. First they want to emulate a false
| reality that doesn't exist, then some of them end up
| rejecting that same false reality that never existed (the
| red pill crowd) and end up tilting against windmills. Both
| groups have deluded themselves by choosing keep their eyes
| closed to the actual reality they exist in which is far
| more mundane.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| That's an interesting point, one I wish the article had
| made explicitly.
| dnndev wrote:
| There are many reasons. Values, mental health, family
| baggage, opportunities (there is no shortage of opportunities
| in America - regardless of race). Yes you may need to work
| twice as hard but none the less it's an opportunity.
|
| Assuming young healthy men, the next big issue is values. Are
| they self centered? Prideful? Presumptuous? These are values
| parents teach to avoid and cultivate beneficial qualities -
| they cannot be delegated to others. A growing trend is the
| absent parent (entire other thread on its own - not faulting
| the parent). Schools or anyone else should not teach children
| this. Out of need it happens at times and what you see is a
| reflection of the broader community.
| AvocadoPanic wrote:
| No fault divorce, girl bossing, anti-shame messaging, delayed
| marriage.
| d_e_solomon wrote:
| AvocadoPanic wrote:
| Moving women into the workforce as certainly reduced
| fecundidity and marriage.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Same with moving men into the workforce. If people had
| more free time they'd have more kids.
| d_e_solomon wrote:
| We're long past the time when we need to be concerned
| about maximizing children output as a societal goal. I'm
| much more interested in ensuring people have lives with
| meaning and growth than trying to pop out as many
| children as possible. If that means a woman has a career,
| great. If that means a woman wants to be a stay at home
| mom, also great.
| golemotron wrote:
| This won't age well. We're on the cusp of a demographic
| crisis. We need more people.
| t0suj4 wrote:
| From what I've heard the problem are divorce courts granting
| women nearly everything. That rigs the game against dads.
|
| Marriage is a huge liability. Men are gambling with nearly
| all their lives on their partner's unwillingness into a
| divorce.
|
| On the other hand I've heard rumors where therapists were
| suggesting divorce to married women. I don't know how
| widespread that is but maybe something worth looking into.
| sokoloff wrote:
| It seems obvious to me there are situations where a
| therapist _should_ help their client /patient explore
| divorce as an option.
| igetspam wrote:
| Does it though? In a typical marriage, one side goes to
| work and the other stays home. The one who stays home has a
| pretty stale resume during the years kids can't be in
| school and they often don't make it back to the workforce
| at all. This is a decision that's usually agreed to because
| the long term plan is to stay together and this is the
| agreed upon model for load distribution. Then comes
| divorce.
|
| The party that has always been the primary caregiver is
| expected to keep that role, in general. Without a partner
| who works and gets paid, they are left scrambling to find a
| job. Since their resume has gone stale, they end up making
| a fraction of what they would have, had they stayed
| working. Don't forget, they're still probably the primary
| caregiver and have to handle finding daycare or babysitters
| so they can work and take care of of kids.
|
| You can guess which parent generally get the more difficult
| role. So which side has it better?
|
| My wife hasn't worked since she completed her Masters. If
| we split, she'd have a degree that qualifies her to be a
| teacher but not valid certifications. I make a very good
| salary. She'd have our kid because there's no math that
| would make sacrificing my job a reasonable option. I could
| give her half my net and I'd still live the high life but
| she would have to deal with all the details of scheduling
| our kid's life and I'd be able to opt out of it. I never
| plan to split but my life would be much easier than her
| life would be, if we did.
| Longlius wrote:
| >Does it though? In a typical marriage, one side goes to
| work and the other stays home.
|
| This is flat out incorrect. More than 2/3rds of married
| mothers in the US work.
| [deleted]
| lyaa wrote:
| As far as I know, in the US, the custody and
| house/apartment is almost always given to the parent who
| /wants/ the children. Men often don't fight for custody.
| They should.
|
| Also, the division of assets is not out of proportion I
| think. If I got married and my partner left the workforce
| to take care of the home/children, I do think they should
| get their fair share of assets in case of divorce.
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| The laws and the system against that are openly and
| publicly against men, its not exactly a secret.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > Men often don't fight for custody.
|
| In the cases where both do, majority custody is almost
| always given to the wife.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Do you have a study for this? When I researched it
| briefly years ago it seems when men ask for custody they
| often get exactly the custody they ask for, and the
| narrative they don't is something largely spread by
| people who are either ignorant or men who were denied
| custody for heinous examples of abuse. Men simply ask for
| custody less or ask for less custody broadly.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a
| rti...
|
| > noting that nearly 30% of fathers surveyed did not want
| physical custody
|
| > The outcome matched the re-quest for maternal custody
| in nearly 90% of such cases. See id. In contrast,
| paternal physical custody was awarded in only 75%
|
| > in a 1992 study of 1,124 divorced families, 67.6% of
| children lived with their mothers; 15% lived with both
| parents on a joint custody basis; and only 9.5% lived
| with their fathers
| Jiro wrote:
| This fails to correct for how many fathers won't even ask
| for custody because there's such a low chance of getting
| it.
|
| If it was the 19th century and I observed that most women
| who took the bar exam passed the bar exam, would that
| prove that men and women were on an equal footing?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If it was the 19th century and I observed that most
| women who took the bar exam passed the bar exam, would
| that prove that men and women were on an equal footing?
|
| It would require other evidence (of which there is
| plenty, for the 19th century legal training pipeline,
| including explicit institutional discrimination) to show
| the bias.
|
| But other evidence isn't just an unsupported narrative.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| This was published well over 20 years ago. Do you have
| anything more reflective of modern days? Taking it at
| face value, assuming nothing has changed (a big
| assumption) it's still the case that the vast majority of
| men who ask for custody are awarded custody.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| I'm not sure how you possibly reached that conclusion.
|
| ~30% of men don't want ANY custody. Yet ~67% of children
| live only with their mother.
|
| Assuming that 100% of children that the father didn't
| want go to the mother (they don't - some go to the system
| or relatives) - that means in 47% of the other cases, the
| mother gets FULL custody.
|
| So this means for 100% of those 47% of cases, the father
| did not want the mother to get FULL custody, but that's
| what the court decided.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >I don't know how widespread that is
|
| There's a proverb about apples that seems relevant.
| ss108 wrote:
| Plenty of much more sophisticated and educated men continue
| to get married despite that, but you're suggesting that
| these less educated and knowledgeable men are incentivized
| by modern family law?
| rabuse wrote:
| Women also file for divorce 60 - 75% of the time (up to
| near 80% in the black community). Men are risk assessors by
| nature, and see no benefit to risking their livelihoods for
| such little benefit.
| igetspam wrote:
| By nature? Really? What are women, by nature?
|
| :popcorn:
| dgfitz wrote:
| Lmgtfy which might encourage you to reconsider making
| flame bait comments that serve no useful purpose.
|
| http://journal.sjdm.org/jdm06016.pdf
| fn-mote wrote:
| I loved the idea of this comment, so I read the article.
|
| It says that men are more likely than women to take risks
| across several domains. This does not support the idea
| that men (more than women) are "risk assessors by
| nature".
|
| The article also says that women and men are equally
| likely to take risks in the social domain... which
| probably includes marriage.
|
| In general, I think the blithe characterization of men
| and women in this way does not move the dialogue forward.
| dgfitz wrote:
| My point was it's roughly equal, why make a shitty
| comment trying to start a fight instead of looking up the
| information.
| rayiner wrote:
| > How do they undermine the norm? They don't do this on
| purpose they are also just humans.
|
| I don't think they do this on purpose; I think they're well
| meaning and don't "want to judge." The problem is that social
| judgement is what creates signals for what's good and bad and
| what's worthy and unworthy; what has value and what doesn't.
| And people respond to signals.
|
| Imagine that you're just an average dude growing up in the
| middle of nowhere. College isn't in the cards for you--you're
| not cut out to be a Facebook engineer. But the local canning
| plant needs people to work. Do you think social signals don't
| affect what choices you make?
| AvocadoPanic wrote:
| Military or a trade would be a better choice.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/DD/issuances
| /do...
|
| There's the 40 page document of all the medical reasons
| you won't qualify for military service, one of which I
| have. Everyone says just join the military, but I suppose
| 7 year old me should have thought of that before I chose
| to get bone disease.
| AvocadoPanic wrote:
| 7 year olds often make poor choices.
|
| Military and trade jobs require an element of
| physicality, it's the nature of the work. It's not for
| everyone, but neither is University.
| igetspam wrote:
| I don't know about "undermin[ing] the norm" but I see this
| kind of hypocrisy in my own family. They shout about all life
| being precious and abortion being murder and also how single
| mother's need to get harder and how they shouldn't have to
| pay more taxes to help lazy poor people. Both positions have
| one thing in common: they negatively impact non-whites and
| the poor more. They can't self reflect and see it,
| unfortunately. My family is not unique. It may not be
| intentional but they still clearly think that the only way
| they can succeed is by having others fail.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| 90% of economic gains are captured by the top 5%.
|
| If you're not in the top 5% - I'm not sure this an insane
| world view.
|
| If you just want to have an average job and not a career in
| the right field or run a business - life seems less like a
| positive sum game and more like a zero sum game.
|
| It's easy for us at the top to talk about "making a bigger
| pie" when we get 90% of the bigger pie.
| VWWHFSfQ wrote:
| > We need to find a better reason why this happens. I don't
| believe it's liberal social values which are not lived by.
|
| So we need to find a reason that you agree with. Not a better
| reason.
| politician wrote:
| It's a camouflaged variant of No True Scotsman.
| Helitioo wrote:
| I can have different reasons why I don't believe in it.
|
| It's not that the article delivered any proof.
| refurb wrote:
| They undermine it by:
|
| - claiming a single parent household is no worse for children
| than a two parent household
|
| - claiming men have no particular importance in the raising
| of children
|
| - financially supporting (in some cases subsidizing) single
| parent families
| kevinventullo wrote:
| Do they? I can see the third bullet in practice, although I
| think it's more of a fix than a cause for single-parent
| homes.
|
| On the other hand, my social circle is highly educated and
| well-off and I'm not sure I know a single person who would
| agree with the first bullet.
|
| The second point I'm less clear on myself: is there
| evidence that children of lesbian couples are somehow worse
| off?
| refurb wrote:
| For point #2, we can follow the idea to its logical
| conclusion. (Note: I have zero issues with gay parents,
| this is just a thought exercise)
|
| If it stands to reason that if the children of lesbian
| parents are indistinguishable from those of mixed-sex
| parents, then men play no particular role in the
| upbringing of children, no? They can be swapped out by a
| woman with no change for the child.
|
| And conversely if a child raised by two gay men are
| indistinguishable from mix-sex parents, then woman play
| no particular role in the upbringing of children, no?
| Replace the mother with another man and nothing changes
| in that child's upbringing?
|
| And therefore, one could argue that a single parent (only
| a man or woman) are only worse off due to limited
| parental resources (not to be underestimated), but not
| because an opposite sex partner would add anything unique
| to the childrearing.
| crmd wrote:
| Children raised in a non-dysfunctional two parent
| household (regardless of parental gender / sexual
| orientation) witness healthy interdependence,
| cooperation, negotiation, trust, respect, conflict
| resolution, love etc. between their primary caregivers
| during their critical development period. Raising a child
| with a good partner is about more than resource
| availability.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| The third bullet here is basic economics. When you create
| demand for a product by subsidizing it, people will
| create supply.
|
| Practically, these subsidies mean that poorer women who
| could marry the father of their children will often
| choose not to because they are getting money from the
| government that exceeds what the man can bring in. It is
| a little bit like the effect of a very high minimum wage:
| it helps a certain group of people, but prices many
| others out of the market. Each step of the process is a
| perfectly rational economic decision, and it completely
| destabilizes the home.
|
| I have witnessed this firsthand with some of my
| relatives, who unfortunately behaved exactly as the
| microeconomics predicted. They had children out of
| wedlock, wanting to get married but also wanting to keep
| their benefits, and then ended up separating because the
| man's attempt to work like a dog to provide more than the
| government burned him out (he actually wanted to get
| married and do the right thing).
|
| Edit: I also want to add that I'm pretty sure the second
| point here is not true. Lesbian and gay two-parent
| households don't seem to have worse outcomes than
| heterosexual couples.
| kevinventullo wrote:
| Thank you for sharing. It sounds like this is an
| unfortunate side effect of the law and not the intention,
| though. I wonder whether the laws could be updated to
| prevent these perverse incentives.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| So are government benefits super generous or are these
| men just unable to make good wages despite "the man's
| attempt to work like a dog"?
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Minimum wage * 50 hours per week is less than the
| benefits you would lose from it. There is literally a
| >100% marginal income tax at the bottom income brackets
| if you factor in loss of benefits. This also was in New
| York where benefits and taxes are high.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Ok, is this a problem? And if so does that mean there is
| some solution?
| number6 wrote:
| > The second point I'm less clear on myself: is there
| evidence that children of lesbian couples are somehow
| worse off?
|
| No the aren't: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010
| /01/100121135904.h... "The family type that is best for
| children is one that has responsible, committed, stable
| parenting. Two parents are, on average, better than one,
| but one really good parent is better than two not-so-good
| ones. The gender of parents only matters in ways that
| don't matter."
| em-bee wrote:
| i don't think that is what the second point is about.
| there is a difference between having two involved parents
| and having one of the parents present but not involved
| with the kids at all. regardless of the gender, the
| latter will affect the children in different ways.
| slfnflctd wrote:
| That's an entirely partisan take, and a hacky one.
|
| There are plenty of wealthier families who shelter their
| children in ways poorer families cannot who have exactly
| the opposite views & approaches from what you described.
| Those efforts are often carried out through churches.
| Helitioo wrote:
| xwolfi wrote:
| I think you're wrong. I'm French so my "social conservative
| christian" parents still taught me to roll cigarets, that
| abortions saved young girls' future and that you shouldn't beat
| your wife if she wants a divorce, which is for me american
| "social liberalism".
|
| The way I see rigidity is to associate set roles to women,
| beating the gayness out of gays or shunning you for marrying
| out of your parents' religion. What you describe is complete
| laxism, maybe not telling men that they do have to own up their
| decisions, especially raising children that even someone like
| my dad did, despite being more flexible maybe than your parents
| ?
|
| And I'm socially liberal in the sense I married a Chinese and
| raise my daughter telling her mariage is not the only goal in
| life, that if she's gay it won't matter, and that religion is
| BS, but I still expect her to raise her kids properly if she
| has some... so I'm not sure your parents raised you well
| because they were rigid or simply because they were good honest
| people... which even the liberals you dislike could also be !
| itronitron wrote:
| It's important to keep in mind that there have been significant
| policy decisions that diminish the positive impact of social
| programs by taking into account the marital status of those
| receiving them.
|
| The documentary 'The Pruitt-Igoe Myth' provides a nice case
| study on the societal impact of otherwise banal policy and
| funding decisions.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pruitt-Igoe_Myth
| sunjester wrote:
| Giving birth to a baby without being married is a religious
| point of view.
|
| I am supposed to believe that a "sociology professor at
| Princeton, and Kefalas, a sociology professor at St. Joseph's
| University" can somehow convince me that he knows what a "low-
| income woman" thinks or does in her life. I've lived around
| "low-income women" my whole life and I haven't figured it out.
|
| "The conventional view is that a lack of money leads to out-of-
| wedlock births."
|
| Whose conventional view? This is not the view of poor people.
|
| "Today, one in six American men between the ages of 25 and 54
| are unemployed or out of the workforce altogether: about 10
| million men.", the book this came from was written by a
| conservative scientist from Iowa. I tried to check some of the
| stats and every one of them seem to be wrong.
|
| This link outright proves there are not 10 million men
| unemployed in America.
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/193244/unemployment-leve...
| So who's statistics are right?
|
| This is a horrible article that seems to do nothing by try and
| place blame rather than provide a solution to a problem that
| does not exist. I will go as far as to say this article is
| quite racist. The article says "American" men but then only
| targets white American men in their statistics. Which is it,
| American men or white American men?
|
| He says at the beginning of the article he was one of America's
| "lost boys" which already tells me he has no idea what it means
| to actually be lost or poor. His other blog posts reveal his
| religious rhetoric. Remember when Cambridge produced leaders
| and not followers?
|
| This is a poorly written article based on personal views and
| statistics that don't even target the proper demographics of
| the content of the article. Unbelievable.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| > This link outright proves there are not 10 million men
| unemployed in America.
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/193244/unemployment-
| leve... So who's statistics are right?
|
| Both of them are right, this is a common confusion in
| unemployment statistics. _Unemployment_ as a technical term
| refers to people who both don 't have a job and are "in the
| workforce", meaning they gave the right answers for the
| survey taker to conclude they're looking for a job. People
| who aren't trying to find a job are "out of the workforce"
| but not "unemployed".
| sokoloff wrote:
| They aren't in U-3 (the most commonly cited figure), but
| might be in U-4, U-5, or U-6 (or might be in school,
| retired, permanently disabled, or something else that most
| people wouldn't think of as "unemployed").
|
| https://www.stlouisfed.org/open-
| vault/2018/june/unemployment...
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > I'm from a rigidly socially conservative immigrant family
| that professes fashionably liberal values in public
|
| I don't consider believing in matrimony, fidelity, and
| prioritizing ones' children as socially conservative.
|
| It's just normal.
|
| Just spend some time watching Tiger King to pick up on their
| lifestyles and politics: They might appear liberal because Joe
| Exotic is a freewheeling, open homosexual with multiple
| partners. But on closer inspection, they love Trump and hate
| Nancy Pelosi.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| >The contrast made me realize that professing liberal social
| values that one doesn't live by harms society. It matters what
| we say about what's good and what's bad, what works and what
| doesn't. Creating a culture where men can attain dignity and
| social respect by providing for their family and staying with
| the mother of their kids matters.
|
| Liberal social values includes committing and providing for
| your family
| unix_fan wrote:
| I'm from a middle class, conservative family in a poor country.
| Compared to my richer, status seeking classmates, I can handle
| myself a lot better socially and emotionally. I'm also
| disabled, that means the social divide is a lot tougher to
| crack. In fact, I get shot dirty looks by the same classmates.
| It's not because They don't like the fact I participate in my
| classes, it's just that they don't like the fact that someone
| who doesn't have the same status can equal them in a lot of
| ways.
| mountainriver wrote:
| Good for you! Our struggles are often gifts in disguise!
| camgunz wrote:
| I think the post fails to make the case that male behavior (or
| the culture that induces male behavior) is the root cause of
| divorce rates.
|
| - The rise in imprisonment is basically entirely a result of
| the War on Drugs, aka carceral slavery.
|
| - The problems with employment are that unions have
| disappeared, jobs are hyperexploitative (a better measure than
| the unemployment rate here is the Social Security Disability
| rate), and real wages have stagnated.
|
| - Middle-class divorce rates (different than what the author
| references, which is not-getting-married rates) have only
| started to decline over the last decade or so. The link between
| middle-class families--where the author writes "Poor and
| working-class people follow suit"--is totally unsubstantiated
| by his sources.
|
| - I've not read this book, but looking at a synopsis [0], it's
| unclear to me how you could take a book clearly about women
| (162 of them!) and walk away with the conclusion that the root
| problem is no one expects men to stick around. It feels to me
| like more of a character study of broken systems (again War on
| Drugs, income inequality, etc.)
|
| - The paper referenced at the end [1] is junk? Contains a lot
| of self-cites and no original research? I can't dig into the
| secondary sources, but the amount of editorializing makes me
| skeptical of the foundations here. It also seems at odds with
| the rest of the post: if men will do whatever it takes for sex,
| it seems like they should be working hard to stay out of
| prison? Or to hold down a job? Is the argument that women
| should be more discerning?
|
| I'll also say I keep seeing this weird line from conservative
| or conservative-ish posts about people on the left not speaking
| up for marriage. I'm super left and that's not my experience or
| anyone else's I know? I mean, we're very in favor of gay
| marriage, and everyone I know acknowledges the research is
| pretty unequivocal in favor of two-parent households, so I
| think there's some nuance missing from this conversation.
|
| ---
|
| Broadly though, I do 100% agree our society is busted, and not
| just for systemic reasons (though those are big pieces). Many
| of us have lost a sense of community and place we once had. I
| don't know what about our culture has done this, but it's bad.
|
| [0]: https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/13738165
|
| [1]:
| https://carlsonschool.umn.edu/sites/carlsonschool.umn.edu/fi...
| nitrogen wrote:
| _Many of us have lost a sense of community and place we once
| had. I don 't know what about our culture has done this, but
| it's bad._
|
| The marketing, political, religious, and cultural industries
| that divide and conquer us into ever finer slices of
| demographic identities to sell us things have convinced
| everyone that they can only be themselves by emphasizing
| their irreconcilable differences with others. In doing so
| they have robbed us of any sense of common identity.
|
| It's no longer acceptable to be thought of as part of broad
| category A where everyone has different interests and
| affinities. Instead now, we have to be exclusively XYZ and W,
| and nobody else could possibly understand the XYZW
| perspective.
| camgunz wrote:
| I agree retrenching pluralism is necessary, but it's a long
| road to hoe. I've been reflecting lately on my day to day,
| how even before the pandemic I never knew my neighbors or
| anyone in my neighborhood, had a low-key resentment towards
| any forced or incidental social interaction where I'm not
| 100% in control of my experience, sometimes I load up HN
| and high-road people for an hour or two or some online
| dating app, blah.
|
| It's like, no wonder things are depressing, and I'm super
| privileged. Mostly what I'm running up against is
| existential and abstract. It's hard for me to even imagine
| working gig jobs or being back in tech support.
|
| Maybe this is just rehashing what you're saying, but I find
| modern life intensely dehumanizing. There's so much space
| between us--on purpose--that we're just adrift.
|
| My brother and I were talking with an older guy a couple
| years ago, and he pinned the blame for this on garages.
| Time was you parked in your driveway and had a neighbor
| interaction, but with the garage, you just slipped in and
| no interaction. Was it always an awesome neighbor
| interaction? Definitely not, but it had a cohering effect.
| I think he's wrong in the micro, but it does to me ring
| true in the macro, where we have so much more control over
| our interactions that we just don't get the incidental
| mixing. Then again lots of people in our society have tons
| of unwanted interactions (e.g. women) so dunno if this is
| at all right.
|
| IDK this was weirdly personal and whiny, but I don't know
| how else to really get at what I've been thinking for a
| while.
| purplerabbit wrote:
| > The rise in imprisonment is basically entirely a result of
| the War on Drugs, aka carceral slavery.
|
| Pretty sure this is false, unless I'm really out of touch
| with the statistics
| homonculus1 wrote:
| >Many of us have lost a sense of community and place we once
| had. I don't know what about our culture has done this, but
| it's bad.
|
| Every community is a social organism fighting uphill on an
| energetic gradient. Therefore in order to survive a community
| always has to have a boundary. If you cannot delineate "These
| people are Us and those people are Not Us" then you cannot
| store energy in social bonds. People watch their cultural and
| societal investments get cracked open and poured out for the
| benefit of outsiders. Then they stop investing and turn to
| rationalized materialist systems that are more reliable. And
| then you do not have a community.
|
| Here's an effective strategy if you're part of a materialist
| system: at every turn, make a moral argument for why the
| investments inside a target community are actually evil and
| must be cracked open. Mount a massive and continuous campaign
| to redefine the core concept of community (loyal in-group
| preferentialism) as an exploitive world-historic injustice.
| Then coordinate this as a basis for reward and punishment at
| scale. Now you can watch people trip over themselves to leave
| their community and seek material protection inside your
| system.
|
| Rinse and repeat et voila, you've perfected technological
| metabolism of human culture. Bye bye, sense of community!
| lkey wrote:
| > Watching and hearing about the family instability in these
| communities is heartbreaking. Half or more of everyone's
| parents are divorced. The kids float around seeking stability
| and the adults can't provide it.
|
| You seem to be attributing the cause of this to 'Telling men
| and boys it's cool and fine to divorce' and not attributing to
| say... declining material and social capitol in the lower four
| quintiles of wealth that have created pressure that exacerbates
| marriage instability and numerous other social ills.
|
| Also, divorce sucks when kids are involved, I don't think
| anyone on earth, left or right, would dispute that.
|
| > Creating a culture where men can attain dignity and social
| respect **
|
| We do in fact need a culture where it is possible for people to
| attain human dignity. I don't think that the path to gaining
| this needs to be a rigid and proscriptive 'return to
| tradition'.
|
| For example, with the advent of no-fault divorce, divorces went
| up, but female suicide rates dropped by 20%. It wasn't all
| streamers and light when the 'guard rails' were on.
|
| And speaking of America specifically, dignity and respect were
| not equi-distributed if you were a simply a 'married man' in
| decades past. It was quite a bit stricter: white, middle class
| or higher, married men were the ones afforded government
| support and social protection.
|
| > My family's rigid expectations have been such a blessing.
|
| I won't dwell on this, but not every (or even most) children
| benefit from this approach to parenting. Extreme rigidity, in
| fact, is more associated with negative long-term outcomes.
|
| Finally, historically speaking, decrying the next generation as
| depraved, lost, and needing traditional discipline has been
| something the older generations have done since at least the
| invention of writing (across all cultures too!). Yet I'm still
| continually shocked that this argument continues to be
| unironically employed century after century.
| irrational wrote:
| > Also, divorce sucks when kids are involved, I don't think
| anyone on earth, left or right, would dispute that.
|
| Tons of people dispute this. The thinking is that people
| staying married when they don't want to stay married is worse
| for kids than people getting divorced and creating two
| separate households the kids float between. I don't agree
| with this thinking, mostly because I'm the product of divorce
| that saw the aftermath and have seen the deep regret of what
| happened on both the parent of the previously married parents
| and the children. I suppose the good thing that came out of
| it is that neither I nor any of my siblings have gotten
| divorced, despite now all having been married longer than our
| parents ever were. Divorce is rarely the answer and does
| terrible things to children.
| alsetmusic wrote:
| > Divorce is rarely the answer and does terrible things to
| children.
|
| My mother was shocked that I supported my parents' divorce.
| She couldn't imagine how I wasn't devastated. They screamed
| at each other frequently. They'd stayed together "for the
| kids," and that was a nightmare.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| Right. I don't think it's divorce that does terrible
| things to children but bad relationships. Whether that
| relationship ends in divorce or not, growing up in a
| household full of toxicity and people fighting and hating
| each other and full of animosity is what is terrible. And
| yes, that often leads to divorce. But it's the toxicity
| that is terrible, not the act itself.
|
| (My parents are not divorced and have had a quite good,
| tho imperfect, marriage so I can't speak for either
| scenario. But this is what I gather knowing and observing
| people who grew up with parents who divorced or remained
| married while miserable and hating each other.)
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| I don't know how many people actually dispute that divorce
| sucks tho, even if they think that it is the preferable or
| better or even good outcome for a relationship.
|
| Like, I don't know anyone who argues that divorce is easy
| and fun and causes absolutely no issues for kids who are
| involved. What I do see people argue is that divorce can be
| a better outcome than staying together and being miserable.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Whatever works for you, but be aware your experience might
| not generalise to the whole population. I'm not going to
| say "everyone's situation is different", there are more
| than seven billion of us, I suspect our experiences fall in
| to approximately a few broad categories,
|
| My parents stayed together much longer the should have. One
| day, much later, my mother cried and apologised that she
| hadn't left my father 13 years earlier.
|
| My father was a massive piece of shit, the lung cancer
| couldn't have taken him soon.
|
| We wouldn't have been floating between two houses, rather
| we would have had one stable home.
|
| I don't believe the people arguing for divorce in some
| situations are saying "divorce doesn't suck", but there's
| at least some chance it might be better than the
| alternative.
| Supermancho wrote:
| >> Also, divorce sucks[1] when kids are involved, I don't
| think anyone on earth, left or right, would dispute that.
|
| > Tons of people dispute this.
|
| Divorce with children clearly does suck, statistically and
| practically. Those who dispute it are simply wrong, for
| whatever reason they wish to assert. That's obvious, with
| the data we have today.
|
| [1] "sucks" is a fairly broad word, but graciously, it can
| be considered "not good".
| antiterra wrote:
| My parents no longer being married did nothing to me. Zero.
|
| My parents trying to get me to hate the other parent caused
| severe damage and was entirely ineffective at its goal.
|
| Not being able to spend much time with one of my parents,
| especially the one with the most life survival skills was
| bad. I had a relative that could have stood in, but they
| declined to really be there regularly.
|
| An amicable divorce with some mitigation of the parenting
| structure would have turned out just fine. And, maybe part
| of that would have been achieved with an _earlier_ divorce.
| psyc wrote:
| I was a child of divorced parents. It seems logical that
| which is 'better' depends on just how irreconcilable the
| differences are, relative to the parents in question. I
| mean, it seems staying together could only work if the
| parents had small changes to make, simply because people
| mostly don't make big changes to themselves, at all.
|
| My mother sat my 2 sibs and I down _before_ and asked for
| our thoughts /feelings, and we all said "Do it" without
| hesitation or doubt. In my case, we were all clearly worse
| off materially after. I think we kids were a little better
| off mentally and emotionally, but a large component of that
| is that my mother would have continued attempting suicide
| otherwise, and it's possible she might have succeeded.
|
| It's useless to speculate about whether they could have
| stayed together if they'd had the capacity to put others
| above themselves, because they didn't have it, and no
| amount of counseling could have endowed them with it.
| jchanimal wrote:
| Divorced dad, anecdote. My kids, my ex, and I are much
| better off now. Having the kids around 50% time is a huge
| sanity boost and allows me to be there for them more than
| before. I'm lucky to have remarried to a very engaged
| stepmom, but even without her we'd probably still be better
| off.
|
| I also saw my parents become much happier after they split
| up (when I was an adult.)
| pnutjam wrote:
| 100% of the problems this article is bemoaning are
| because of lack of financial support. The top needs to
| stop hoarding all the money.
| throwaway_div wrote:
| I'll add a +1 to this as the kid of parents who divorced
| (when I was about 11). Home went from being an unpleasant
| place to be to being a nice place again. It is horrible
| to feel stuck between two people who don't want to be
| there.
|
| It was one of the best things that happened for me. And
| my parents.
| chmod600 wrote:
| "don't want to stay married" is worth exploring. Why don't
| they want to?
|
| Maybe a part of that is attitude and culture and values,
| and not so much unreconcilable problems. If they felt
| strongly about providing for their children together, and
| that was highly respected by society, maybe the problems
| they have would look trivial.
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| I was the opposite. My parents "stayed together" in that
| they lived in the same house but had separate bedrooms and
| lives. Most of the time when they were interacting it was
| some kind of power struggle. By age 13 my sibling became an
| addict and is to this day unable to sustain a job. I
| attribute it to the instability in the household growing
| up.
|
| We're always going to see this through the lens of the
| experiences we grew up with.
| atq2119 wrote:
| I appreciate the candor but at the same time wonder about
| the lack of counterfactual experience. What if your parents
| had stayed together and you grew up in a household of
| constant fighting? Would that have been better?
| lkey wrote:
| I meant _the fact_ of a divorce involving children sucks
| (for the kids especially).
|
| I wasn't arguing that parents with children shouldn't
| divorce at all. Each couple will need to consider the pros
| and cons as best they can.
|
| I myself was a product of a home that tried both 'stay
| together for the kids' and 'extremely messy 6 years long
| divorce' in that order. That relationship was doomed from
| the start, it would have been better if they'd never met.
| My dad is/was a high-functioning drug addict (among other
| thing), divorce was always the best answer for them.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > declining material and social capitol in the lower four
| quintiles of wealth that have created pressure that
| exacerbates marriage instability and numerous other social
| ills.
|
| The article disputes that:
|
| "Most social scientists who study poor families assume
| financial troubles are the cause of these breakups. After
| all, these young people grow up in a context of extreme
| disadvantage, at least by American standards, and they come
| of age with little education, few skills, and not many future
| prospects. Lack of money is certainly a contributing cause,
| as we will see, but rarely the only factor. It is usually the
| young father's criminal behavior, the spells of incarceration
| that so often follow, a pattern of intimate violence, his
| chronic infidelity, and an inability to leave drugs and
| alcohol alone that cause relationships to falter and die."
| fallingknife wrote:
| > You seem to be attributing the cause of this to 'Telling
| men and boys it's cool and fine to divorce' and not
| attributing to say... declining material and social capitol
| in the lower four quintiles of wealth that have created
| pressure that exacerbates marriage instability and numerous
| other social ills
|
| Considering that the divorce rate has increased massively
| while poverty has decreased, it is nearly impossible that the
| cause of marriage instability is poverty.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| This statistic "with the advent of no-fault divorce, divorces
| went up, but female suicide rates dropped by 20%" seems very
| surprising to me. By googling I haven't been able to find a
| source for it. If I look at women's suicide rates over time
| they seem to be trending up. No fault divorce starts in
| California in 1969 and is legal in the last state, New York,
| by 2010. If that causes a significant drop in suicide rate I
| can't see it on this graph.
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/187478/death-rate-
| from-s...
|
| Additional Googling has turned up for me a paper that gives
| the 20% reduction claim. Still not clear to me how a 20%
| reduction in female suicide does not show up in a chart of
| female suicide rate.
|
| Another interesting thing about this paper is that it
| references another paper that found the opposite result -
| i.e. that no fault divorce seems to have increased the
| suicide rate.
|
| https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=104.
| ..
|
| I tried to find suicide rate in California specifically
| around 1970. Ideally, I'd like to see a graph going from 1950
| to 1990 and see that there is a ~20% drop around the
| legalization of no fault divorce. I found this paper that
| does mention a big drop in California suicide rate,
| especially among women and teens, between 1970 and 1990.
|
| https://sci-
| hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1943-278X.1994....
|
| This paper does not attribute the drop in suicide rate to no
| fault divorce though. As I understand it this paper is saying
| that the suicide rate drop is explained by two main factors.
|
| First, a change in how California coroners coded suicides
| relative to how other coroners did it. If I'm understanding
| correctly it seems in 1970 California coroners were inclined
| to mark deaths resulting from suicide attempt damage as
| suicide. Because of this, in 1970, California cities had
| about double the suicide rate of US cities. By 1990
| California coroners were doing what other coroners were doing
| and California cities had effectively the same rate of
| suicide as US cities.
|
| In my imagination this works as - if a woman attempts to kill
| herself by overdose, but survives the attempt, though has
| irreparable organ damage and dies from that a month later -
| in the 1970's California coroners would call that suicide,
| but by 1990 they would call it an unintentional death. Since
| men tend to kill themselves with guns or by hanging men tend
| to die when they attempt suicide. Women are more likely to
| try poisoning or drug over dose and thus are more likely to
| survive the attempt but take an eventually fatal injury. This
| would explain why women's suicidality is apparently more
| affected by a change in coroner practice than men's.
|
| Second factor is changing demographics. American Indians are
| the most suicidal, then white people. Between 1970 and 1990
| the proportion of these two groups declined and the number of
| the relatively not-suicidal Hispanics increased dramatically.
| Thus, the suicide rate in California will appear to plummet -
| not because of any change in behavior or policy, but simply
| because there are more less suicidal people moving in.
|
| After reading about this for the last hour my current
| impression is that we probably don't know the affect of no
| fault divorce on female suicide rates. The academic
| literature is contested (I've seen two papers on the specific
| point with opposite claims), the statistics are not clear
| (female suicide rate is trending up), and in the state with
| the sharpest change in suicide rate following no fault
| divorce legalization (to my knowledge this is California)
| there are other explanations for the change.
| fundad wrote:
| Agreed. real satanic-panic vibes here.
|
| I can't be the only one who grew up seeing how little is
| expected of affluent men.
|
| The ideal is someone "brilliant" who gets others to do what's
| expected of him. And then you can afford to be divorced and
| retain respect.
| itronitron wrote:
| I think you're making an attribution error by suggesting
| they are able to get others to do anything, that would
| imply that the person first realized that something needed
| to get done beyond establishing their brilliance.
|
| At this point I think my sons may accomplish more in life
| if they remain unemployed as adults.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| > For example, with the advent of no-fault divorce, divorces
| went up, but female suicide rates dropped by 20%. It wasn't
| all streamers and light when the 'guard rails' were on.
|
| Did the female rate decrease more in married groups than
| unmarried groups? Without more data, this seems like a ripe
| candidate for https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-
| correlations
|
| Suicide rates have been dropping across the board due to a
| variety of reasons. Attribution is very hard here.
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=2504425&page=1
| indigochill wrote:
| > And speaking of America specifically, dignity and respect
| were not equi-distributed if you were a simply a 'married
| man' in decades past. It was quite a bit stricter: white,
| middle class or higher, married men were the ones afforded
| government support and social protection.
|
| You're conflating dignity and respect with government
| support. These are not remotely the same things. Some highly
| respected men were actively opposed by their respective
| governments because they stood up for what they saw as right
| despite the corruption of their governments, e.g. MLK Jr,
| Mahatma Ghandi, even Jesus. All dignified and respected by
| large numbers of people, all opposed by their governments.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > You seem to be attributing the cause of this to 'Telling
| men and boys it's cool and fine to divorce' and not
| attributing to say... declining material and social capitol
| in the lower four quintiles of wealth
|
| It's six of one, half a dozen of another. As the Chinese
| philosopher Confucious was already well aware of, a tight-
| knit family is the foundation of all other social structures.
|
| > Finally, historically speaking, decrying the next
| generation as depraved, lost, and needing traditional
| discipline
|
| Except that it's not merely "the next generation", i.e. youth
| that's being so described. The ongoing fraying of the social
| fabric in late-stage modern societies, especially among those
| most vulnerable to marginalization due to a broad variety of
| added factors, has been ascertained quite objectively.
| danaris wrote:
| > a tight-knit family is the foundation of all other social
| structures.
|
| But you're missing an important part there: the "tight-
| knit" part doesn't just mean "stays together no matter
| what". It means "genuinely care about each other and work
| well together."
|
| Yes, a close, loving, supportive family is hugely
| important, for everyone in it. But a) the nuclear family
| you're almost certainly thinking about (a married couple
| and their children) has _not_ been the norm for the vast
| majority of human history (and certainly wasn 't when
| Confucius was writing), and b) whether you have a nuclear
| family or not, when one or more of the relationships at the
| core of your family is dysfunctional and causing
| significant stress, breaking that relationship apart can be
| a big improvement for the family as a whole. (In fact, when
| you don't have a nuclear family, it's much easier and safer
| to do that, because you're much less likely to be losing
| half the income in the household, or the only stable adult-
| to-adult relationship in the household.)
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > Yes, a close, loving, supportive family is hugely
| important, for everyone in it.
|
| Telling people that it doesn't matter if they divorce and
| that they should put their own short-term happiness first
| and foremost is tantamount to denying this. And when it's
| the liberal upper class doing this, they're pretty much
| pulling up the ladder to effective social cohesion behind
| themselves, even as they hypocritically enjoy its
| benefits while denouncing the horrific plight of those
| most socially marginalized. The fact that some people in
| terrible relationships are genuinely better off if they
| split apart doesn't mean that celebrating divorce as
| anything other than potentially a lesser evil is a
| sensible idea.
| bandyaboot wrote:
| This seems to be rooted in the notion that the liberal
| upper class benefits by having cohesive families while at
| the same time saying that divorce doesn't matter and, in
| fact, celebrating it. I can't help but ask you to support
| that, because it seems like a bizarre claim to me. The
| only type of person that comes to mind for me when
| thinking of people that celebrate divorce are people that
| have been divorced.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > I can't help but ask you to support that, because it
| seems like a bizarre claim to me.
|
| There's little about this claim that's "bizarre", and the
| OP brings relevant evidence. Celebrating widespread, no-
| fault divorce and dismissing the importance of household-
| scale social cohesion is indeed a key part of the current
| Zeitgeist amongst intellectual, often left-leaning
| elites.
| bandyaboot wrote:
| It's quite possible I missed the relevant evidence as I
| skimmed through a lot of it. There was certainly a
| relevant supporting anecdote, but I assume you're
| referring to more than that? I won't bother responding to
| the part that is essentially "support through
| repetition".
| atq2119 wrote:
| > Telling people that it doesn't matter if they divorce
| and that they should put their own short-term happiness
| first and foremost
|
| That's a straw man, though. Nobody relevant is telling
| people that. You're either not listening to the primary
| sources and are getting a distorted representation by
| politically motivated secondary sources, or your own
| biases are clouding your understanding when you're
| reading the primary sources.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| The BLM movement explicitly supports "dismantling of the
| nuclear family structure" as one of their goals. How many
| progressives have voiced support for BLM? How many have
| bothered to denounce and disclaim support for these
| peculiar aims, that seem to have remarkably little to do
| with benefiting Black lives, and that quite a few Blacks
| would themselves oppose?
| rcacho wrote:
| I think the BLM group and the BLM movement should be
| differentiated. While many progressives may have
| supported the BLM movement I don't believe the openly
| Marxist organization is as popular. Also, just cutting
| the quote at the dismantling part without including the
| rest of that statement seems disingenuous.
| danaris wrote:
| Disclaimer: while I support the BLM movement, I've never
| personally interacted with it in any meaningful way, so I
| don't know exactly what _they_ mean by this, to the
| extent that they have, in fact, said it.
|
| "Dismantling the nuclear family structure" doesn't mean
| "throw organized families to the wind, let children fend
| for themselves, force everyone into single-parent
| households" or anything like that.
|
| Like I said in my previous comment, the "nuclear family"
| is _not_ the norm, it is _not_ a particularly stable or
| sustainable model for family units, and what we had
| before, while it certainly also has its flaws, tends to
| be _much_ better for any family that doesn 't completely
| fit within the happy fairy-tale ideal of two parents who
| love each other completely, 2.4 kids, and a dog.
|
| Through _most_ of human history, "family" has meant
| either "three generations of blood relations living under
| one roof, out to aunts/uncles/cousins or even farther,
| all sharing responsibility for things like child-rearing"
| or, even more broadly, just "the entire community, made
| up of a big extended family (with or without blood
| relations)/tribe/clan." When two parents didn't get
| along, even if they didn't "divorce" in the way we
| understand it today, they could still stop being pair-
| bonded without it significantly affecting the children,
| because those children were being raised more or less in
| common with a half-dozen (dozen? score?) others in the
| much large "family unit", by all the parents, uncles,
| aunts, grandparents, etc.
|
| "Dismantling the nuclear family" doesn't mean breaking it
| down and sending the component parts off to do their own
| thing individually. It means removing that very specific
| and very inflexible structure as our society's _only_
| acceptable model of what it means to _be_ a "family,"
| because like many other things that emerged in the shadow
| of the Industrial Revolution, it may be helpful for some
| people, but it's deeply harmful for many, many others.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Unfortunately, the radical left's contempt for the
| bourgeois nuclear family is only exceeded by their far
| greater contempt for the traditionalism of extended
| family structures, which often entails "staying put" for
| multiple generations in comparatively rural towns and
| villages - far different from the inner-city concerns of
| the rest of the BLM movement, and the leftist progressive
| movement more generally. So, while there's much to say
| for what you're advocating here, it's not the kind of
| change that BLM is going to meaningfully pursue.
| FFRefresh wrote:
| The question has to be, why is there open hostility to
| the nuclear family by this and other movements? Why is
| there a negative statement about it needing to be
| disrupted/dismantled? Why can't there just be a positive
| statement about supporting different arrangements where
| it makes sense?
|
| Yes, there are some social norms around the nuclear
| family in the West, but it isn't a requirement in
| society. Nobody is stopping anybody from living how they
| want as far as who you can have in your life or whether
| extended family/community can support each other. Nobody
| is not hiring people because their parents are divorced.
|
| There IS evidence that growing up with both parents
| greatly increases the likelihood of success. Does that
| mean having 2 parents is the only way to live? No, it
| doesn't. But why be hostile/negative towards something
| that evidence shows is positive? Why not just be positive
| towards something else?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > why is there open hostility to the nuclear family by
| this and other movements?
|
| The term, as used in there criticism, refers to the
| social _norm_ and institutional structures centered on
| it, not the existence of families that happen to fit the
| norm..
|
| > But why be hostile/negative towards something that
| evidence shows is positive?
|
| The nuclear family norm is _not_ positive for the
| community BLM is concerned with, it both stigmatizes what
| is common in that community (a harm in itself) and
| idealizes something which evidence shows is harmful for
| that community (almost certainly more due to present
| material conditions than inherently, but the reason isn
| 't that important for this purpose.)
|
| https://news.umich.edu/more-than-one-third-of-american-
| kids-...
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3172319/
| FFRefresh wrote:
| Thanks for sharing the links to data/studies.
|
| However, I don't think they support the idea that the
| nuclear family is _harmful_ to african-americans.
|
| A few points:
|
| 1. Logically, if certain behaviors/social arrangements
| are common within a community, then they inherently
| become 'norms' themselves.
|
| 2. The study you linked, associates cognitive scores at 2
| years old to household structure. I personally don't
| think using data for 2 year olds is the best measure for
| determining the impact of household structures on life
| outcomes/the community. There's also a lot of massaging
| of the data to produce its final results, which raises a
| flag for me without further investigation (this does NOT
| mean anything untoward has happened, just flagging that).
|
| 3. All that being said, the study linked shows that the
| nuclear household is the second best household structure
| for african-americans (as measured by 2 year old
| cognitive scores), bested only by also having a
| grandparent around. Interestingly, grandparents weren't
| net good in every case. Here's a further quote directly
| from the study:
|
| > Supplemental split models showed that for African
| American children, living with both grandparents and
| other adults was associated with a significantly lower
| cognitive score than living with grandparents or in a
| nuclear family
|
| 4. _If_ that study is the backbone of the idea that the
| nuclear family is _harmful_ for african-americans, then
| more attention should be paid to keeping other adults out
| of the house, and keeping biological parents in the
| household.
|
| 5. Just a word of advisement, as far as American social
| norms go for sharing data on cognitive scores across
| different racial groups, there's a strong norm to NOT
| share the data if it doesn't suggest perfect equality.
| The study you linked doesn't show perfect equality, so I
| would just be careful sharing in other environments.
| danaris wrote:
| We can't easily do _empirical_ studies on the effects of
| family structures besides the nuclear family, because
| _the nuclear family is the norm_ in Western society right
| now (and especially America).
|
| That means that a) there will be very few such families
| to study (and where you _do_ find larger populations that
| have non-nuclear family structures, there are likely to
| be other confounding factors, as they are likely to
| belong to some particular subculture). This reduces your
| sample sizes and makes it hard to draw rigorous
| conclusions based on the data you are able to collect.
|
| But also b) any such families you find will be
| _necessarily_ marginalized to some extent, because,
| again, the nuclear family _is_ the norm, and that
| fundamentally means that those who eschew it will find
| themselves underrepresented and frequently discriminated
| against, both overtly and subtly.
|
| That means that outcomes for such families in the real
| world, today, will be almost guaranteed to be worse than
| they could be otherwise, _because of the exact thing BLM
| is trying to change_ (the nuclear-family norm).
| zozbot234 wrote:
| That just isn't true. Extended families are common and
| coexist with nuclear ones throughout the Mediterranean-
| influenced world, including the bulk of Latin America.
| That's a _huge_ population to study. Not to mention Asia.
| FFRefresh wrote:
| The post I was responding to was attempting to use an
| empirical study to support a given sociological position
| for a given group (which from reading the study didn't
| actually support that position).
|
| Now you are responding to me and saying empiricism cannot
| be used to support the given sociological position. Did
| you mean to respond to the poster I was responding to? I
| did not put forth that study in this thread.
|
| Even given all of that, I strongly disagree with the
| anti-empiricism notion for this topic and any other
| related one.
|
| On sample sizes being an issue:
|
| -The US has 330 million people.
|
| -There are 130 million households in the US.
|
| -There are 74 million children in the US.
|
| -35% of children have lived with a relative (i.e. non-
| nuclear) other than their parent or sibling at some point
| by age 18 (source: umich link the previous poster posted)
|
| -And when you look beyond the US, the world has a
| population of 7 billion people
|
| -Needless to say, we don't have a dearth of data to lean
| on to answer questions such as these
|
| -There's also such a thing called statistical
| significance, which can be used to display the confidence
| of a result given the sample size. Studies usually use
| p=0.05
|
| On the idea that non-majority populations/lifestyles
| automatically means _guaranteed_ worse outcomes, I do not
| agree that 's a given, and don't accept that it _must_ be
| the case here. I have seen no causal chain presented yet
| (that also accounts for the available evidence). A couple
| counter-examples:
|
| -Non-overweight people are the minority in the US, but
| their outcomes are much better, even though there are
| norms around larger/higher caloric meals in the US
|
| -Same-sex couples, a minority, have higher household
| income than heterosexual couples
|
| Do not misread the above examples as saying there's no
| discrimination going one way or the other or there being
| no confounding factors. They are showing that living a
| minority lifestyle does NOT guarantee worse outcomes. And
| we shouldn't assume that's the case without evidence for
| other things.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| It does not. The stated goal was "disrupt the nuclear
| family requirement." Very different than "dismantle the
| nuclear family structure."
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Funny to see where arch-elite conservative David Brooks
| and BLM are in such complete agreement.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-
| nuc...
| skinnymuch wrote:
| Explicitly? Where?
| [deleted]
| FFRefresh wrote:
| They removed references to it from their website (I
| _believe_ after backlash), but here 's an archived link
| to it: https://web.archive.org/web/20200715132542/https:/
| /blacklive...
|
| The relevant bit:
|
| > We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family
| structure requirement by supporting each other as
| extended families and "villages" that collectively care
| for one another, especially our children, to the degree
| that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.
| hairofadog wrote:
| The key word you're missing in your interpretation of
| that quote is "requirement". I may love hiking, but I am
| not in favor of _requiring_ hiking for everyone.
|
| I imagine this is in response to various conservative
| proposals over the years to put forth (straight) marriage
| as a solution to various unrelated societal ills.
| FFRefresh wrote:
| My comment didn't feature an interpretation, it was
| directly quoting the BLM site... but now I will offer an
| interpretation based on your comment:
|
| I'm not in favor of requiring hiking or certain family
| structures either. Serious question, is there a
| _requirement_ for the nuclear family?
|
| Let us not conflate norms and legal requirements. Where I
| live, there is most certainly a norm around hiking being
| a really positive thing that you should do, and it's
| associated with being higher status (local fashion trends
| even favor looking like you are a hiker). Not everyone is
| a hiker, and some people don't like hiking. But I'm okay
| with the norm existing, but would never support a
| _requirement_ for it.
| atq2119 wrote:
| > Serious question, is there a requirement for the
| nuclear family?
|
| The answer depends on where you are. It's nowhere as
| strict as "if you have a child outside a nuclear family,
| you go to jail". But there may be all sorts of softer
| pressures in place.
|
| Now, I don't think having such pressures is necessarily
| bad in all places. It becomes bad when it's a "one
| solution fits all" approach, and the pressure is applied
| even in situations where dissolving a traditional nuclear
| family would be in the participants' (especially the
| children's) best interests.
|
| Putting myself in the shoes of black folks, I can
| certainly see how certain conservative initiatives cross
| that line.
| 88913527 wrote:
| A lot of this discussion seems to be wrapped up in the
| idea that the lower classes look up to the upper classes.
| Is there any evidence for this point? It seems to imply
| poor people unable to think critically and independently.
| Yet, there exists households of modest means where each
| partner holds their other half accountable-- yet nobody
| is talking about those people. What's different about
| them, and what differentiates them from other lower-class
| households that can't keep it together?
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Because when people think critically and independently,
| they get called "deplorables", "bigoted" or "conspiracy
| nuts" by the liberal elite who don't like what they have
| to say.
| skinnymuch wrote:
| I'm with you on the wildly wealthy and also elite people
| like Ted Cruz or that Shapiro fella. Or Josh Hawley. Cant
| be more of a coastal elite than that! Even I've visited
| the mid west because I wanted to, for non political
| reasons, more than he has and he's from Missouri. Which
| he fled from to go from one coastal elite institutions
| after another. Or that Tucker fella who a few weeks ago
| sarcastically brought up Biden paying off his Yale
| student debt. Even though Biden at most would do $10K
| debt relief. And Tucker is an heir while going to Yale as
| a wealthy person is as elite as you can get -- no
| relation to the common person.
|
| Same issues with out of touch elites like Biden and Mrs
| Harris throwing every other struggling person in prison
| if it benefits them while pretending it is being tough on
| crime and prevailing justice. Or Pelosi, or the
| Clinton's, and oh so many more. Pelosi with her "let me
| trade investments with possible insider knowledge as
| possible" heh.
| 88913527 wrote:
| Conservative echo chambers are just as strong as liberal
| ones. You best be towing the party line with your
| thoughts when participating in any political affiliation.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> I won't dwell on this, but not every (or even most)
| children benefit from this approach to parenting. Extreme
| rigidity, in fact, is more associated with negative long-term
| outcomes.
|
| Nobody is advocating "extreme rigidity". Consistently
| enforced boundaries have benefits for people across the
| board. I would argue that's the most important thing (maybe
| even the only thing) in raising kids to become responsible
| adults.
| captainredbeard wrote:
| > but female suicide rates dropped by 20%
|
| ...hmm, male suicide rates are going up...
| photochemsyn wrote:
| You might want to age-control that:
|
| https://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20200911/suicide-
| rate-...
|
| > "Suicides among children and young people aged 10 to 24
| rose 57% from 2007 to 2018, according to a new report from
| the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention... In
| actual numbers, the suicide rate among 10- to 24-year-olds
| jumped from about 7 per 100,000 in 2007 to nearly 11 per
| 100,000 in 2018, according to the National Vital Statistics
| Report published Sept. 11."
|
| That's called massive societal failure any way you look at
| it. Oh well, I guess there's the upside that wealthy
| boomers can ride off into their cruise ship futures on the
| backs of 401K retirement plans financed by investments in
| student loan debt, fossil-fueled global warming, price-
| hiked pharmaceuticals and the war machine. What a wonderful
| picture, really shows the mentality here.
|
| Jim Morrison was speaking for that class when he said, "I
| don't know what's gonna happen, man, but I'm gonna get my
| kicks in before this whole shithouse goes up in flames."
| onionisafruit wrote:
| People tend to be absolutist about whether it's better for
| kids if unhappy parents get divorced, but as the saying goes
| every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Some
| marriages are hell for everybody involved and need to end. I
| put abuse situations in that category of course and also
| marriages that have so much animosity that they can't stop
| fighting. On the other end of marriages that may end in
| divorce are situations where one partner gets wanderlust and
| doesn't want to be tied down by a family or are disappointed
| that their lifestyle isn't what they expected. In those cases
| it is probably best for the kids if the parents learn to be
| happy within the bounds of their family.
| newbamboo wrote:
| Women control the social capital and function as norm
| setters in our society. Fixing men won't help if women and
| the prevailing culture remain broken. All the divorces I've
| witnessed, nearly every married childhood friend of mine
| has been the victim of unwanted divorce - in every instance
| initiated by women who simply wanted a younger, richer,
| more x partner. All were heavily endorsed by the
| surrounding social groups. It's framed by their culture as
| an issue of women having equal rights to live life the way
| that makes them happy. Well who could argue with that. It
| sounds great that people should just be free to be happy,
| and to restrict women's freedom in this domain harkens back
| to the past which we as a society have decided was a bad
| time, when women couldn't vote and were the property of
| men. I can't argue with that! But the children are robbed
| of a chance at something better, something their parents
| had, a stable family. Sometimes the little boys will then
| decide to become females. Who could blame them! I have
| learned that it's better to accept these changes than to
| swim upstream like an old salmon or something. As long as
| boys can become girls, hypergamy seems fair, more
| symmetrical. That said, this current state of affairs
| amongs the coastal working class doesn't seem like the
| optimal arrangement with respect to mental health outcomes.
| itronitron wrote:
| Since it seems like you have a pretty good sample size, I
| am curious whether you have noticed a difference or
| pattern in upbringing among the current and/or former
| wives of your childhood friends.
| newbamboo wrote:
| Sure. Children of divorced parents are more likely to opt
| for divorce themselves, based on my sample. That is
| consistent with everything we know and expect about
| humans. Whether and how these apparently heritable
| differences are due to nature vs nurture is to me the
| more interesting question. Many in the lower class have
| imperfections that seem plausibly linked to biology
| rather than culture, like fundamental biological
| differences in capacity for impulse control, cognitive
| deficits whether congenital or epigenetic in origin, etc
| If someone is abusive due to lead exposure for instance,
| maybe them divorcing their partner capriciously, as a
| result of poor impulse control, may in fact be the best
| outcome for everyone. But what if these biological
| factors can be ameliorated through culture, say through
| meditation or more traditional means, then problems of
| nature can be addressed through culture, and perhaps
| there alone. That's a line of thought that might fructify
| other progressive efforts to improve our culture, should
| the progressivists pursue it.
| itronitron wrote:
| I tend to think any imperfections are a result of
| negative socio-cultural (parenting) impacts, although
| that can of course be driven by one whack-a-doodle
| relative (biology as the pebble and socio-cultural as the
| ripples.)
|
| In my experience families that are dirt-poor but land-
| rich tend to have successful offspring. Maybe that sense
| of place contributes to the needed stability for children
| to do well as adults.
| parentheses wrote:
| I don't understand how you get from family instability to
| sexual identity confusion. Can you explain the connection
| and preferably substantiate it with data.
|
| The gist of what you're saying is true: family
| instability causes one to question their identity. You
| fixated on sexual identity so explain why.
| XorNot wrote:
| dang wrote:
| Please don't descend into flamewar like this. That's not
| what HN is for, and it destroys what it is for, so if
| you'd please not, we'd appreciate it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Divorce is a legal proceeding. The Government is _ipso
| facto_ involved, and even more so when kids enter the
| picture since otherwise there would be no one to stand
| for their interest.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > and even more so when kids enter the picture since
| otherwise there would be no one to stand for their
| interest.
|
| The situation in my case was so extreme that my father
| ended up with custody, but from what I've heard from
| others it doesn't sound like the government is standing
| for the interests of the children. The courts for
| example, in my fathers parents' divorce, gave custody go
| him and his siblings to his broke, alcoholic mother
| instead of his mentally and financially stable father.
| XorNot wrote:
| And what do you think the government is going to do when
| you eliminate no-fault divorce as this whole thread of
| cowards are happy to imply but not state? What do you
| think happens then?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| So much of the elite wealthy class and their media sock
| puppets on both sides of the traditional left/right political
| divide are dedicated to pushing the identitarian culture war
| theme - because what they don't want to deal with is
| something like this:
|
| "Creating an economy where men can attain dignity and social
| respect."
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > "Creating an economy where men can attain dignity and
| social respect."
|
| Whether hard-working folks can attain dignity and social
| respect is a factor of society itself, not merely a side-
| effect of material circumstances. The poorest countries in
| the underdeveloped Third World have far more recognition
| and respect for those who work hard and provide for their
| households (and the happiness/life satisfaction indicators
| to go along with it) than much of the rich West.
| rayiner wrote:
| > "Creating an economy where men can attain dignity and
| social respect."
|
| What does that mean? Is everyone going to attend college
| and become coders? Who is going to collect the trash. In my
| home country the dominant job opportunity is subsistence
| farming, people still manage.
| ohthehugemanate wrote:
| The lack of dignity and social respect conferred upon
| those who perform jobs like trash collection is precisely
| the cultural ill OP is describing.
|
| One of my favorite parts of living in Germany has been
| the relative lack of social hierarchy associated with
| one's job. I'm in a martial arts class with a mix of
| doctors, lawyers, musicians, carpenters, students, and
| (actual) garbage collectors, and not once have I noticed
| a stratification or class connotation in discussion
| during or after class. They have very different economic
| means of course, but "dignity and social respect" is
| exactly the right description for the quality they all
| grant each other as contributing members of society.
|
| It's a cultural quality I've come to accept as a marker
| of a functional social democracy.
| indigochill wrote:
| > What does that mean? Is everyone going to attend
| college and become coders? Who is going to collect the
| trash.
|
| The obvious solution is to discard classism and extend
| dignity and respect to the garbage-collectors. Why
| shouldn't they be respected? They perform an essential
| service for their community.
| mola wrote:
| This! Most of the flaming identity cultural wars are
| basically a distraction. The problem as always is class,
| and elites vieing for control.
|
| Yes progressive values are a thing, but its media
| representation is nuts, on purpose.
|
| The it's us vs them narrative leads to subjucating all
| values to pure "survival". This promotes long term
| irrationality. The powers at be know this and capitalize
| it. On both "sides". In my biased opinion this sort of
| Machiavellism is more common with conservatives, but its
| definitely common enough in non conservatives.
| dudul wrote:
| Why do you think it's more common with conservatives?
|
| You said it yourself, cultural wars are just distraction
| to keep the elite in power and talk about everything
| except classes. People in power don't care about
| conservatives or liberals, they just pick a team and play
| the game.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Which party has been dedicated to cutting the taxes of
| the wealthy for decades? As the saying goes, show me your
| budget and I'll show you your values.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Which party is dedicated to importing massive numbers of
| cheap workers from other countries to allow business
| owners to undercut working class wages and pocket more
| profits?
| quintushoratius wrote:
| I suspect that you're implying that the answer is the US
| Democratic party, but it's really not.
|
| By making immigration-without-visas a criminal offense,
| rather than an administrative one, the anti-immigration
| movement serves to drive immigrants (but not immigration)
| underground and makes their labor cheaper.
|
| It's a lot like prostitution: since prostitution is a
| criminal offense, all prostitutes are criminals. They can
| be abused freely because they cannot go to the
| authorities without certainty being punished themselves.
|
| By the same token, an undocumented immigrant cannot
| contact authorities to report they're underpaid, stolen
| from, beaten, imprisoned, or enslaved. (These are all
| things that happen regularly.) Their "criminal" status is
| used as a cudgel to abuse them.
|
| Keep in mind, these are all people that just want to work
| in exchange for money, and they're responding to people
| and companies that _want_ to hire their services. The
| "illegal immigration" posturing is just the buyers' way
| of artificially depressing prices.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Umm... The one that uses immigrants as scapegoats for
| votes and then does nothing to effectively regulate the
| businesses that import cheap workers? Take for instance
| the Trump family -
| https://www.npr.org/2017/01/12/509179558/trump-winery-is-
| see...
| skinnymuch wrote:
| What about all the rich or powerful conservatives who end
| up having cheap workers brought here to work at their
| homes and so on?
| PartiallyTyped wrote:
| Because their base consists of people who:
|
| - are severely uneducated. Consider distribution of
| political alignments in Academia. Consider the fact that
| antivaxxers and conspiracy theorists are in their
| overwhelming majority politically conservative and
| authoritarian. Belief in conspiracy theories is highly
| correlated with an impoverished interpersonal
| functioning, such as interpersonal paranoia, narcissism,
| disagreeableness, insecure attachment and
| Machiavellianism [1]. Impoverished interpersonal skills
| signify lack of empathy, which fuels dehumanization, and
| enables exploitation of others.
|
| - grew up hammered by propaganda and the red scare, where
| anything that resembles social welfare is considered
| communism even if they themselves are dependent on such
| systems. Accepting that one needs help is exceptionally
| difficult for a person high on narcissism and paranoia.
|
| Furthermore, when threatened, the brain takes
| "conservative" stances, i.e. stances that preserve the
| status quo. When faced with an ever changing world that
| does not resemble anything that they were accustomed to,
| they cling on to the closest sense of status quo even if
| the person or structure that supports it only does so for
| optics.
|
| The lack of education makes it difficult for them to see
| that they are played like pawns by the bourgeoisie, that
| they receive preferential treatment through systemic
| issues [2], and finally they misattribute the reasons for
| their successes due to their obliviousness [3].
|
| [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6282974/
|
| [2] https://libcom.org/library/advance-class-struggle-
| abolish-wh...
|
| [3]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attribution_(psychology)
|
| Kind reminder that I stated facts, so please argue, as
| adults :) .
| Applejinx wrote:
| As notacoward observes... literally 'men'? To my ear,
| 'people' would've worked too.
|
| I feel it's always worth asking whether there are unstated
| axioms here being snuck into the discourse. Especially in a
| big conversation about how 'everything is being ruined
| because people won't stick to the old good ways'.
|
| Though it may be an uncomfortable question to some, to what
| extent does this rest upon female humans serving as
| livestock and spawning/rearing children, being relatively
| disposable themselves?
|
| If you REALLY want to maximize 'men attaining dignity and
| social respect', to what extent does this rest upon the
| existence of a subhuman underclass which doesn't count as
| 'men' and can be enslaved for their labor? Dignity and
| social respect are RELATIVE. The easiest way to make them
| seem enhanced for some is to strip 'em from others. People
| vary far too much to make 'free market' human interaction
| easy and seamless, and every time we run up against a
| conflict our dignity and social respect takes a hit.
|
| How badly do you want your dignity? And how much is your
| end goal just you and not anybody else? (this would be an
| abstract 'you', not intending it as an argument that the
| original commenter is this 'you')
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| All humans, indeed every life-form, are for " _serving as
| livestock and spawning /rearing children_", period. Until
| somebody invents Dune-style axolotl tanks to clone people
| and robot nannies, that's not going to change. If a
| society and its culture can't perpetuate itself, it will
| be replaced by one that does so we all need to come up
| with a balance that works to perpetuate the type of
| society that we want.
|
| In the meantime, maybe ease up on flamebait language like
| "subhuman underclass" and trying to insinuate the person
| you're replying to is some kind of scoundrel and try
| suggesting solutions to the fraying social balance
| instead? Because it's increasingly obvious that there's a
| problem here.
| Applejinx wrote:
| No, I don't think so. I specifically exempted the person
| I was replying to in my 'you' unless he wants to lay
| claim to being the sort of person I meant, and I'm happy
| with my language in the context I expressed it: 'if you
| really want to maximize your dignity and social value of
| men'
|
| From my perspective we are looking at social balance that
| incorporates more variation, and that there were obvious
| problems with the previous balance that's now said to be
| 'fraying'. I think 'dignity and social respect' is a zero
| sum game, and largely dependent on power balances: you
| can never truly feel 'I am treated with dignity and
| social respect!' unless you're being kowtowed to by at
| least some. Otherwise, your perspective will inevitably
| be challenged, perhaps a lot if you mingle with a lot of
| varied people.
|
| The state of actual freedom, is a state of social
| instability. Nobody defaults to the dominant, nobody's
| guaranteed to win, and the larger the pool you're in, the
| more likely someone is going to turn up, compete hard,
| and make you VERY challenged indeed. And they're in the
| same pool so there's doubtless something making them very
| insecure in turn, even if they're stomping all over you.
|
| You can make this seem like a solid, reliable, secure
| social balance as long as you're able to crush opposing
| forces and have whatever your class/gender/race is,
| totally dominate everyone else. Then it won't seem
| 'fraying' or 'a problem' at all, because you'll not be in
| serious danger: others will.
|
| The nice thing about humans is that, as thinking life-
| forms, we get to self-govern the appetites we share with
| dogs. As such we cease being livestock. This counts for
| women, too, exactly as much as it counts for men: it's
| more aspirational than practical. But we do get to
| question these things, both personally and societally.
| rayiner wrote:
| Any culture that equates women having and raising kids
| with "being livestock" will be replaced by a society that
| doesn't see motherhood that way. By definition.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| It's the exact same culture that sees "happiness" for
| women in pursuing "a younger, richer, more x partner", as
| noted by a sibling commenter. The idea that many women as
| well as men might find genuine happiness and fulfillment
| within stable, well-functioning household relationships
| is entirely foreign to some "modern" ways of thinking.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Now I really have to wonder, do you get social
| recognition from your _livestock_? Of course you don 't.
| So why even make that argument? Dignity and social
| respect can be a positive sum game; in fact, this is
| effectively the key insight behind the notion of social
| capital. In a well-functioning society, more social
| respect for women can fully coexist with dignity for men
| and vice versa.
| notacoward wrote:
| Not sure of you realize it, but by focusing a common
| social-justice phrase on men alone you promote exactly the
| same kind of "identitarian culture war" that you decry.
| Might not be that effective.
| bilbo0s wrote:
| I hate to be "that guy", but you guys have this whole thing
| backwards.
|
| What men do is based on what men want. What men want is sex.
|
| If sex is free then you can have all the liberal or
| conservative values you want, but it won't cause those men to
| work harder. Why? Because sex is free. Full stop.
|
| If sex costs more than most men will ever have, then you can
| have all the liberal or conservative values you want, most men
| will still opt out. Since they know their chances are nil. Why?
| Because they'll never get sex, it costs more than they have.
| Full stop.
|
| No amount of ideology is going to change these facts. No matter
| what the ideology is. (Of course, now I think about it, you
| could probably change it at the barrel of a gun. That is, the
| government could make blunt force laws that would force women
| to lower their prices for sex and companionship, or force men
| to work hard even in environments where sex is free. Or both I
| suppose? But that's not ideology moving men and women, but fear
| of the government's guns.)
|
| And that's it. There is no grand philosophy behind it all. It's
| just a bunch of guys out trying to get off. And women out
| trying to get the best deal for what they offer. This is the
| kind of issue where liberals and conservatives generally go off
| the rails. They usually never account for base, vulgar human
| nature in their grand philosophies.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| >What men do is based on what men want. What men want is sex.
|
| That may be true in your experience, but in my experience
| what men mostly want is to build things and dig really cool
| tunnels.
| h2odragon wrote:
| > What men want is sex.
|
| If it were that simple, there would be more goats and less
| stress.
| dgfitz wrote:
| I'm not sure if you're trying to be funny or making a lazy
| dismissal of the point you quoted. Either way, suggesting
| men fuck goats isn't productive.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| The point quoted is a pretty lazy effort that simplifies
| "what men want" down to something that is highly
| incomplete and obviously inaccurate. I think a sarcastic
| reply is sometimes the best response to low-quality,
| reductive comments.
| h2odragon wrote:
| all 3.
| BlargMcLarg wrote:
| >What men do is based on what men want. What men want is sex.
|
| Too simple, though what you say captures the essence. People
| have breakpoints for how hard they are willing to work for
| various things. Some of them are progressive (relationship ->
| kids -> family). Some are lateral (relationship, starting a
| business).
|
| For a lot of men, they see getting a relationship is more
| difficult than just having low effort sex. So they get
| exactly that and continue on with their lives otherwise.
|
| Next step, families and children. Have a relationship? Cool,
| now look at how much effort it takes to start a family and
| raise kids. Look at the risks involved. Look at the demands
| it takes. Loads of guys go "nope, too much, too risky, too
| little reward" and check out.
|
| Society has been pushing to make it much easier to have sex
| risk-free. They have made it much harder to start a
| relationship, let alone start a family, by introducing all
| these risks and incentives not to. Plenty of men still want a
| family more than or on top of sex. They just don't want the
| current deal given to them.
|
| Cherry on top, almost every time the debate opens as to why
| men in particular don't want this deal (as opposed to "why do
| people / women not want this deal"), the discussion turns
| into shaming men into taking the deal rather than evaluating
| things and working together. No civil conversation, just a
| bunch of monkeys flinging poo. And people are surprised men
| are ghosting society, when you won't even pretend to listen?
| bombcar wrote:
| Liberals and conservatives agree on the basics and disagree
| on the scope - which is why conservatives are always
| defending the so-called "liberal" policies of a generation
| ago.
|
| Admitting the base and vulgar nature of humans puts the whole
| concept of a liberal democracy at risk.
| etherael wrote:
| If it's admitting the truth, then it should be at risk.
| Anything else is just delaying the inevitable and not
| planning adequately for its arrival in the meantime.
| bombcar wrote:
| We're starting to see the seeds of this in various ways -
| an example is realizing that laws and penalties against
| speeding don't really do anything, but changing the
| design of the road can do everything.
|
| There are many, many more examples for us to find.
| [deleted]
| throw-away-9925 wrote:
| Straight hetero male here confirming. Too much work for real
| relationships and kids and marriage and all that. Much easier
| to just date around, get laid, and bail if things ever get
| hard.
|
| I fully believe (though despise) the harsh but true evidence
| that I have seen in my life. Love is a lie, children are a
| burden, the future is bleak, etc. I would love to live in a
| world of community, great for kids, having a family is
| awesome, etc., but that's not where we live. Best to live for
| short-term rewards and after I die let the rest of the humans
| destroy themselves. I won't add another person to the
| madness.
|
| When you can see that nothing we can do can derail the train
| headed for the cliff, and that the game theory at play has
| reduced relationships to transactional, short-lived
| interactions, you can choose to "hope for the best" and get
| burned, or just check out, try to enjoy your short term by
| working as little as possible in the machine, and then ending
| it if you get too old/sick to enjoy anymore.
|
| A good example is just watching the lib/conserv and pro/anti
| male sentiments in this thread. It just makes it glaringly
| obvious that seriously participating in this system is an
| exercise in futility.
|
| Its kinda like starting a game of monopoly with all the
| spaces owned. I'm gonna role the dice and I assume I'm not
| getting ahead. But I'm sure as hell not going to get
| invested, invite more people to play, or do more to enrich
| the bastards who setup such a crappy game in the first place.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| >What men do is based on what men want. What men want is sex.
|
| I think you are close, this is probably mostly true for the
| 16-24 yr old crowd. But I think that the actual drive is to
| produce kids who make a family that he can provide for/care
| for.
|
| The primal urge is steering the ship, but it's a step (or
| two) deeper then sex.
| tootie wrote:
| It's also complete hearsay. Idk why these random opinion blogs
| are getting so much traction on HN. Actual science exists.
| 127 wrote:
| We have been riding four positive tidal waves in the west:
| (momentary) end of war, positive population pyramid, rapidly
| improving technology, extremely cheap resources.
|
| Now that all of those trends are reversing or at least
| stagnating, we are in for a really rough landing, as our values
| and systems have eroded as a consequence of those easy times.
| tristor wrote:
| "Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times,
| good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times."
| idontknowifican wrote:
| when you have kids for no reason, they know they're here for no
| reason, and it's a formula for a disaffected person.
|
| i don't know if expectations being set because of being a man
| makes any sense, but i firmly believe you must have goals and
| morals. i think we spend a lot of time struggling with the
| roles we're assigned. no for any deep reason, it's just work
| and people tend to hate it.
|
| i think it comes down to the intent of the parent in having a
| child. to a point of course, if you're in your thirties and
| refuse to grow up. it's hard to grow up when you were raised
| poorly by a sibling because your parents weren't interested.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > when you have kids for no reason, they know they're here
| for no reason, and it's a formula for a disaffected person.
|
| That does not make any sense. Most older generations did not
| choose to have children (certainly not as much as we do) and
| it did not result in generations being "disaffected". If
| anything that's exactly the opposite - we are the generation
| when we have full control of who gets born and there's never
| been more unhappy families in History than now.
| huffmsa wrote:
| > Most older generations did not choose to have children
|
| Birth control and family planning aren't a new invention.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Oh come on. That's 50 years ago, and I hope you know
| people who lived before then in your family.
| Rapzid wrote:
| Sex is still the primary reason for having a child today
| just as it was 50 years ago lol.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| well they're newer than Television if you're talking
| about effective birth control and family planning. And I
| mean effectiveness has risen since the first invention of
| the pill to where you really can control and plan things
| pretty well.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| And Family Planning is as old as old as the Hills if
| you're talking about marriage as a technology to provide
| a stable household for children
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| well I mean that is not normally what one is talking
| about when using the phrase family planning in the modern
| era.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Yes and No. There is "family planning" as a euphemism for
| contraception and abortion, but there is also a long
| history of using the term in a literal sense that
| includes financial planning, counseling, ect.
|
| Hence, "Birth control and family planning"
| mc32 wrote:
| Previously people who bore kids but didn't plan on it were
| peer pressured by society to carry their water and take
| responsibility and support them to some degree. Divorced
| parents faced significant pushback.
|
| These days, at least it seems, without this social pressure
| people feel free to leave more readily before giving raising
| their family a greater priority. The priority is their
| convenience and not the new generation. Also people just
| don't apply this social pressure on their peers so much, so
| there is less consideration when seeking divorce or plain
| abandonment.
| giantg2 wrote:
| One interesting thing about the ease of marriage divorce in
| my mind is the incongruence of the entry/exit.
|
| Want to get married? Pay a small fee at the courthouse and
| get a license in a day or so. Very easy, very low cost.
|
| Want to get divorced? The process can take over a year,
| cost tens of thousands or more, involve court appearances,
| and dividing property.
|
| Granted both of these actions are easier or less
| restrictive than they were in the past. Although the lawyer
| fees seem to be higher, at least when considering real
| wages have decreased since the 70s.
|
| With the prevalence of divorce, you would think that
| prenups could be made a part of the marriage license so
| that lawyer costs, court costs, etc could be minimized. It
| might even cause some people to reconsider a bad marriage.
| You could go farther with premarital counseling if this is
| really a concern.
|
| I don't know of those are really good ideas or not.
| Personally, I think the government should get out of the
| marriage business altogether. With the wide variety of
| living arrangements and expectations for what a marriage
| is, I think it might work better for people to enter into
| private marriage contracts.
|
| On the social pressures and unwanted kids part, I wonder
| how mate selection plays into this. Sure, there was free
| love in the 70s, but I still imagine that premarital sex
| was not as common as it has become today. I wonder how
| women's expectations of men have changed during this time,
| especially for when to allow for sex. I also wonder how the
| expectations men (and society) have of women have changed,
| especially in terms of work/home/financial responsibilities
| and contraception/abortion options.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Society would be a hell of a lot better off if more people
| practiced what they preached.
|
| I really respect the hardliner commies and theocrats on their
| respective ends of the spectrum for consistently doing this and
| for consistently acknowledging and not liking when they are
| forced to do things not consistent with their beliefs.
|
| As a side note with regard to familial stability in general,
| look how dis-incentivizing familial stability and fostering
| government dependency worked out for the communities it was
| done to in the 1960s and who benefited and who is still
| befitting. That's why it's being pushed, because the people who
| benefited want to go around again but with different/more
| demographics.
| bo1024 wrote:
| It sounds more like the author wants "elites" to preach what
| they practice.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| They largely do?
|
| Divorce rates are much higher among people with lower
| educational attainment
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Recently I've noticed that divorce rates amongst the
| richest are actually quite high too. Gates, Bezos, and
| Musk are all divorcees and Buffet has had an open
| marriage situation for something like decades I believe.
| Just something I found interesting.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| They call it "new wife money" for a reason when you get
| rich...
| sokoloff wrote:
| I think "preach what they practice" would mean publicly
| speaking (more?) in an effort to nudge behavior more
| towards how they act (in your example, to speak out in
| favor of sticking out and improving marriages).
| galfarragem wrote:
| Great comment. I would just make a minor but relevant change,
| everybody is responsible here.
|
| "And creating a culture where men _and women_ are told it's
| okay not to do those things creates harm. "
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| The article is specifically about _men_ having children with
| women, then leaving the family by one means or another. While
| your inclusivity works in many places, the problem here is
| well defined as young men not striving for family stability.
| chasd00 wrote:
| Well why should they? All the hear every day is how they're
| all monsters and the root of every social injustice.
| meken wrote:
| It's weird.
|
| Society has tried to influence me that money, wealth, status,
| career are beneficial.
|
| I was raised middle class.
|
| But I've never quite seen the point in all of it.
|
| All it's really led to is a lifetime of beating myself up and
| asking what's "wrong" with me.
|
| So I'm not sure more expectations and guilt is the answer.
|
| It's hard to see how that would have done anything more for me.
| lolinder wrote:
| OP isn't talking about creating expectations of money,
| wealth, status for their own sake. The biggest thing he says
| his family expected of him was to provide a stable foundation
| for his own children. This is something which _some_ amount
| of money is necessary for, but if you focus entirely on the
| money you 've destroyed that foundation just as thoroughly as
| if you failed to provide for them at all.
| 88913527 wrote:
| It seems like a bit of a nothing-burger considering how low
| OECD birth rates are. More men than ever are simply not
| having kids. So if the objective is to create a stable
| foundation for the next generation -- and there is none --
| mission accomplished. I have no purpose. It's the same
| conclusion, though a different path towards it.
| ss108 wrote:
| "This highly educated and affluent person prioritized stability
| for her own children. But refused to publicly endorse this
| value so that less fortunate children could also benefit from
| family stability."
|
| As someone both from a somewhat conservative immigrant
| background who is basically a coastal elite type myself, I
| think that statement is not particularly accurate or
| insightful. My main point of contention is that low-income
| whites tend not to care for what the highly-educated and
| affluent think anyways. Absurd to blame the "educated and
| affluent" for lower-class abandonment of their own cultural
| values.
|
| "Social change has swept through America so thoroughly that the
| head of the "conservative" party is a three-times-divorced man
| of little character. But that illustrates my point."
|
| I think that has more to do with hypocrisy and is symptomatic
| of deeper cultural and moral problems erupting among
| "conservatives" both rich and poor.
|
| "It's the rest of America that most needs a supportive culture
| that tells men that by getting a job, any job, and supporting
| their family, they can attain a measure of that same dignity."
|
| These cultural groups can have that with or without the help of
| "elites". Again, they don't like elites. The article cites some
| anecdote about a UN meeting--these people tend to not even want
| the UN to exist. They don't know about the UN does, nor do they
| really care. No outcome of that meeting would sway their
| behavior.
|
| Ultimately, the issue isn't that somehow the culture of
| "[t]hose who sit at or near the apex of the social ladder" is
| failing these people. These people have failed themselves, some
| might argue in part precisely because they would rather NOT
| mimic what the people are the apex of the social ladder do.
| These people of course love to place the blame elsewhere,
| particularly on immigrants, but ultimately their culture has
| become degraded and their moral fabric destroyed from the
| inside.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| > Absurd to blame the "educated and affluent" for lower-class
| abandonment of their own cultural values.
|
| The author isn't blaming the elite for the trend. In fact, he
| acknowledges that it has impacted all strata, even though the
| impact is greater at the lower end. What he's saying is that
| family stability is no longer a universal value. The thesis
| is that the elite set the fashion. He writes:
|
| "Those who sit at or near the apex of the social ladder (who
| decide what behaviors are prestigious) have decided that
| family stability is unimportant."
|
| When you say that "low-income whites tend not to care for
| what the highly-educated and affluent think," there may be
| something to that at some level, but I think these are
| trivial levels. The elite make the laws and rules and
| systems, and we all live with those. I think that is beside
| the point, though. It's not that the elites are saying,
| "Start a family and stick with it," and therefor everyone
| else is acting out in protest; it's that the elites are not
| saying it.
| ss108 wrote:
| I'll admit/concede I may have inferred a stronger and more
| specific conclusion than the one the author actually meant
| to make.
|
| "It's not that the elites are saying, "Start a family and
| stick with it," and therefor everyone else is acting out in
| protest; it's that the elites are not saying it."
|
| I'm not sure what you mean here, though--like, my point is
| that elite rungs of society saying "Start a family and
| stick with it" is simply going to be irrelevant to a lot of
| the people the author is talking about. Would you disagree?
|
| Like, operationally, what difference would it make? Would
| unemployed, lazy, drug-addled fathers unmarried to the
| mothers of their children get their act together if Obama
| had said they should more when he was POTUS? If professors
| at Stanford or Harvard or Brown started writing academic
| papers that touted this as correlated with success?
|
| I think this is more than me just being sassy here; the
| author has, IMO, failed to articulate a nexus between the
| problematic behavior he is calling out and the on-the-
| ground results he laments.
|
| The hints contained in the article about what he seems to
| think or imply a better situation would like just don't
| seem...realistic. E.g., the UN lady vocally and openly
| supporting stable family units and this making it into the
| final product of whatever they were doing--it just strikes
| me as nakedly preposterous that anything contained in a UN
| report would have a real impact on the individual behavior
| of anyone in America.
|
| And I get that that's a very isolated example and that the
| aggregate effect of all those little interactions and
| omissions may be real, large, and worthy of serious
| attention. I just don't see the fundamental link between
| the phenomenon and the problems he is concerned with.
|
| Again, I think the ultimate issue with the article is that
| the people he is talking about already aren't trying to
| strive by the criteria of whatever mixed-bag of societal
| values we do have. Middle-class and higher, people value
| education. In terms of children, they are having them later
| and later in life (outside of certain communities, usually
| religious, but sometimes ethnic/racial in general). People
| generally value work and they value taking care of their
| families. So the people in the article are already failing
| to take heed.
|
| Indeed, most of us don't seem to need some distinct and
| clear societal emphasis on not having a kid out-of-wedlock
| at age 21 after having not tried to pursue either higher
| education or some stable trade/skill. If anything, I can't
| think of any group that _doesn 't_ stigmatize this. Even
| the groups he is referring to in the article don't need to
| be told that's not the proper way; it's just sadly somehow
| become normalized for them.
| ibejoeb wrote:
| > my point is that elite rungs of society saying "Start a
| family and stick with it" is simply going to be
| irrelevant to a lot of the people the author is talking
| about. Would you disagree?
|
| No, I don't really disagree with that. If it were just
| elites shouting down, then you're right. It was the
| manner in which it used to be conveyed that matters. The
| mass media is no longer propagating that messaging in the
| way it had been for past decades. Pop culture celebrated
| families, especially in the age of television, from the
| '50s through the '80s. There were some hangers-on in the
| early '90s, like Family Matters, Full House, The Fresh
| Prince of Bel Air, but it was waning.
|
| The contemporary messaging is very positive about
| nontraditional lifestyles. The people who control the
| media are the elite, and the messaging is delivered via
| pop culture stars.
|
| I don't know which way the influence actually flows, but
| I think this is what the author is getting at, and it not
| too far out there if you ask me.
| ss108 wrote:
| Hmm yes, I can see what you're saying, and I do agree
| with you quite a bit.
| sanderjd wrote:
| I think the problem with the whole argument being made in this
| article is exhibited in your pull quote as well: working class
| people don't know or care what that "highly educated and
| affluent person" thinks about anything. It is not then clear to
| me how that person's stance on this - which I don't share -
| could possibly be the cause of the problems of people who don't
| care what that person thinks.
| lolinder wrote:
| It's not the opinions of any one person that matter, it's the
| expressed opinion of society as a whole, which is made up of
| the expressed opinions of every individual. It has to start
| with someone, but I don't think anyone here is under the
| illusion that one person speaking out is sufficient to alter
| the culture.
| sanderjd wrote:
| There is no "opinion of society as a whole". There are
| myriad different cultures within the society, each with
| their own opinion.
| lolinder wrote:
| Fair, that was an oversimplification. I don't believe
| that that substantially alters my point, though: no one
| is saying that if only wealthy person X would speak up
| everything would be better. People are arguing that we
| need a surge of people speaking up in defense of the
| choices they made that contributed to their success.
| sanderjd wrote:
| I think the article significantly overplays the extent to
| which that doesn't happen. I don't actually think there
| is any shortage of affluent / professional class /
| cosmopolitan people who are outspokenly proud of their
| stable families. But I don't think they have any
| influence whatsoever over the working class culture
| exhibiting the problems highlighted. They're two
| different cultures without much overlap or influence over
| one another.
| antiterra wrote:
| Sometimes it's not a contradiction, but our old friend nuance.
| eg
|
| Ideally, everyone should learn to take a literal or figurative
| punch to the face, shrug it off and refocus.
|
| However, that doesn't mean that someone can't be severely
| traumatized or injured by a single punch to the face. The
| context matters.
|
| So the ideal of 'just learn to take it and toughen up' is
| flawed because of the very real effects of trauma. And the
| ideal of 'no one should ever get punched in the face' is flawed
| if we never train ourselves for hardship.
|
| It can be really unintuitive to figure out the middle path
| between the two.
|
| Sometimes it should be obvious. Stuff like, kids should be made
| active enough to occasionally scrape their knee, but sanding a
| scrape into your kids knee is horrible abuse.
| FabHK wrote:
| > The article is right on the mark talking about the importance
| of social expectations for men. My family's rigid expectations
| have been such a blessing.
|
| Emile Durkheim basically introduced the discipline of sociology
| with his study of suicide. He found that the ratio of suicide
| was higher among protestants than among catholics, and
| concluded that it was because they were less embedded in strict
| norms, and freer to do whatever they pleased, compared to the
| stronger social control among catholics. So, freedom turned out
| to be not necessarily a good thing.
|
| (He also found that suicide is higher in times of peace than in
| war.)
|
| Not sure how the theory held up, and what modern sociologists
| say about it. But that result stuck in my head, and it aligns
| with your experience and the article.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_(Durkheim_book)
| croes wrote:
| From your link
|
| "Durkheim explores the differing suicide rates among
| Protestants and Catholics, arguing that stronger social
| control among Catholics results in lower suicide rates.
| According to Durkheim, Catholic society has normal levels of
| integration while Protestant society has low levels.
|
| This interpretation has been contested. Durkheim may have
| over-generalized. He took most of his data from earlier
| researchers, notably Adolph Wagner and Henry Morselli, but
| they had been more careful in generalizing from their data.
| Indeed, later researchers found that the Protestant-Catholic
| differences in suicide seemed to be limited to German-
| speaking Europe, thus suggesting a need to account for other
| contributing factors."
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >they were less embedded in strict norms, and freer to do
| whatever they pleased,
|
| I would argue that strict norms - if they don't come into
| contradiction with what is natural and proven in time as
| beneficial - might imply more freedom than some kinds of
| "freedoms" or "rights" imposed by force if those "freedoms"
| or "rights" come into contradiction with the natural way
| societies and civilizations evolved.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Those pressures forces you down a narrow path. Steve Jobs from
| an immigrant background would have never become what he did if
| he was forced into your situation.
|
| Freedom means you get to choose. Many choose unwisely. Without
| that choice you are limited to established career paths that
| can be easily communicated.
| lettergram wrote:
| > America so thoroughly that the head of the "conservative"
| party is a three-times-divorced man of little character.
|
| I think that's an interesting point. The political window has
| shifted further and further left in recent years. The fact is
| he's not the head of the conservative moment, he's the head of
| the Republican Party. There are differing factions and he
| promised something most in the party could support. For
| example, he supported states rights during the pandemic and
| didn't use force. Similarly, the focus was domestic production
| and an improved foreign policy. Finally, there was a decent
| support of policies for the working class.
|
| I'm not personally for the man, but I can see why there was
| support. It's the most conservative president in decades by
| most measurements, though not personal life.
| Ensorceled wrote:
| > The political window has shifted further and further left
| in recent years.
|
| As an outside observer, I'm Canadian, this viewpoint of many
| Americans that their politics has shifted "left" is
| flabbergasting. The SC has definitely shifted hard right and
| Roe v. Wade is essentially overturned, or being, overturned
| in many states. "Don't say gay" and other anti LGBQT+ laws
| are being passed.
|
| I feel you are using a very "true Scotsman" definition of
| Conservative in your world view in order to paint Republicans
| as "left".
| sanderjd wrote:
| The culture has shifted fairly significantly left while a
| backlash to that, in conjunction with a bunch of weird
| details about our system of government and just the random
| timing of elderly people passing away, has shifted
| political power significantly to the right.
| fnqra wrote:
| FridgeSeal wrote:
| > it reverts to the centrist opinion of the 1990s/2000s
|
| I don't know, sort of feels like we've largely moved on
| from the centrist opinions of the turn of the millennium.
| You'd get the half-shame branding of "metrosexual" for
| dressing better than average or liking things marginally
| off the mainline of masculinity, wasn't exactly a
| particularly supportive attitude back then.
|
| > Brigaded in less than a minute. Well done, LGBTQIA+
| KGB.
|
| Not exactly doing yourself any favours here. Behaving
| like this makes your point get lost in the emotional
| hysteria of your reaction.
| Epiphany21 wrote:
| >You'd get the half-shame branding of "metrosexual" for
| dressing better than average
|
| "Better than average" is highly subjective. There have
| always been expectations in every society about how
| you're supposed to dress and comport yourself in public.
| The styles and forms these expectations take are largely
| arbitrary and in constant flux, but the uniformity they
| provide is anything but. The reason why that kind of
| uniformity is naturally desirable is because being the
| odd one out is more often dangerous than it is
| advantageous. The world is an incredibly dangerous place,
| so if you exhibit aberrant and/or disruptive behaviors
| from the majority population, their default response is
| going to be to shame you, or shut you up, or make you go
| away. It doesn't matter what the behavior is, only that
| it deviates from the norm.
|
| There have always been hippies, flamboyant gays, and
| other eccentric types who have found themselves the odd
| one out (hello there). But I would argue that their
| status in society is really determined by the
| relationships they have with others. If you build up a
| decent rapport with someone, they'll usually tolerate
| more of your aberrant behaviors, and might not mind them
| at all since said behaviors are coming from you
| specifically.
|
| To tie this back into some of the previous posts, being
| gay is a quality but it's not a redeeming one, and it
| doesn't make up for a person's negative traits. There
| seems to be this expectation from very sheltered people
| that being the odd one out should afford them certain
| privileges, often related to some kind of victim status.
| In reality, people will just see you as weak and bully
| you for those perceived weaknesses.
|
| Just my two cents as someone who eschews the
| LGBTBLAHBLAH+++ label for myself, since I don't want to
| be associated with a cult of corporate and pseudo-
| academic pandering that deprives me of my agency makes
| certain assumptions about my morals and politics.
| croes wrote:
| Define frivolously.
| lettergram wrote:
| > "Don't say gay" and other anti LGBQT+ laws are being
| passed.
|
| The law could be described as "baring presentations about
| sex (straight or otherwise) to a classroom of 5-10 year
| olds"
|
| After the age of 10 discussions in the classroom can occur.
| And at any age (5-10), children can ask about sex, but the
| teachers cannot say "don't tell your parents". Which was
| happening...
|
| Anyway, it has support from all sides. It's actually a
| great point about how far the political window has moved. A
| large segment of the population believes we shouldn't be
| discussing anything related to sex, religion or politics in
| the classroom at any age.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| > The law could be described as "baring presentations
| about sex (straight or otherwise) to a classroom of 5-8
| year olds"
|
| One of the authors of the bill was asked if a math
| textbook that had a word problem saying "Jimmy and his
| dads go to the store..." would be in violation of this
| law. He responded that this was precisely the sort of
| thing the law was intending to prevent.
|
| The law is very much not just about direct sex education
| prior to 3rd grade.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Such subversively worded math problems should be avoided,
| no matter who the named parties are.
|
| "Jimmy, Jack, and John go to the store..." would be just
| as effective of a setup for a story problem without
| sneaking in moral displays.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Regardless of your opinion of the "subversive" nature of
| such a word problem, it becomes exceedingly clear that
| the bill is about more than "presentations about sex
| (straight or otherwise) to a classroom of 5-10 year
| olds", as the parent claims.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Are they also going to avoid tacit mentions of
| heterosexual relationships?
| belorn wrote:
| There are things they could try to avoid. It might be a
| bit early teaching 8 year old kids about tits alternative
| and wiener measure.
| nitrogen wrote:
| They should, in a kids' math textbook.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| "Don't say gay" used to be the rule not just in elementary
| schools but in most organizations in the US. Up until 2011,
| you would be immediately dismissed from the military if you
| said gay under the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. The
| _Democratic_ president at the time claimed to have a Bible-
| based belief that marriage is between one man and one
| woman, although a lot of commentators suspect he was lying
| for political advantage. I wouldn 't claim that there's no
| issues the US as shifted right on, and you're right that
| abortion is a big one, but I don't think anyone who
| remembers what the country was like a decade or two ago
| could deny a general leftwards shift.
| throwaway_srb wrote:
| Can you please distinguish between the ex-presidents's words
| and actions?
|
| He supported domestic production, but failed to do anything
| meaningful. He claimed to support the working class but then
| passed the TCJA which benefited the owners of capital more
| than labor.
|
| He did get a few things right like Operation Warp Speed, but
| it's overshadowed by the sheer incompetence of the
| implementation of other actions (ref. CARES act).
|
| I'm not trying to start a flame war nor am I insinuating that
| you are presenting arguments in bad faith; I'm merely stating
| that the actions need to be contrasted with the words.
|
| The real puzzle to me is the level of support he enjoys after
| a term in the office. IMO there are much better people to
| implement the policies that he claims to champion (eg Ron
| DeSantis, Tom Cotton) who also happen to be vastly more
| competent.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| >Finally, there was a decent support of policies for the
| working class.
|
| Please provide actual policy examples. I don't mean like when
| he put on a hard hat and pretended to dig coal with an
| imaginary shovel while on stage, I mean actual tangible
| policy proposals that would have improved the lives of
| working folks. Tariffs were very likely a net negative. Tax
| giveaways to build domestic factories almost never resulted
| in actual factories being built or jobs being created. I
| can't think of anything else.
| dahfizz wrote:
| Reducing taxes is a pretty big one. Even the most
| editorialized and anti-Trump articles[1] admit that "the
| bill helped average families". These articles usually go on
| at length complaining that the tax cuts also help the rich.
|
| But this is the kind of thing that directly and immediately
| helps the middle / working class. Reducing their tax burden
| puts money back in their pocket.
|
| [1] https://www.usatoday.com/in-
| depth/news/politics/elections/20...
| imtringued wrote:
| We should follow the singapore/hong kong model of higher
| property/land taxes and lower income taxes (keep them
| progressive). The government is supposed to manage the
| commons and it should be rewarded for doing a good job.
|
| Income taxes are frankly terrible. They increase the risk
| of corruption because they are "free for all". Increasing
| land value through public investments is often straight
| forward. Proper urban planning increases tax revenues,
| bad urban planning decreases tax revenues. Meanwhile with
| income taxes, the connection is way more elastic. If you
| fund a $8 trillion infrastructure bill with income taxes,
| nobody is going to care if the investment is actually
| worth it but a lot of politicians will be interested in
| adding "pork" to benefit from the money.
| octopoc wrote:
| Massively increasing the child tax credit.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| Stopping mass illegal immigration that undercuts native
| workers, and pushes up living costs, especially housing.
| coryrc wrote:
| There were fewer deportations per year under TFG than
| Obama.
|
| Not sure if you've checked what happened to living costs
| and housing during that administration, because they sure
| went up a lot.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| The parent was asking about "policy _proposals_ ". I
| imagine lack of success of President Trump in
| implementing his proposals has made many of his voters
| unhappy.
|
| That said, if you don't focus on deportations, but
| instead look at the entire picture, note that the total
| net illegal immigrant flow was significantly lower during
| President Trump than it was during President Obama, and
| has jumped through the roof as soon as President Biden
| took over.
| coryrc wrote:
| > I imagine lack of success of President Trump in
| implementing his proposals has made many of his voters
| unhappy
|
| Somehow that hasn't happened.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| For a couple years after trump was elected I worked with
| many illegals. Many of them were scared of trump and had
| family that was scared to come over because of him. It
| was more rumor than reality that kept numbers down, but
| none the less it was working.
| throwaway6734 wrote:
| Support for states rights was wildly inconsistent and
| dependent on the issue. The focus on domestic production was
| largely via anti free-trade protectionist policies. The
| foreign policy was largely unipolar and anti-nato.
|
| Trump is absolutely not a small-c conservative. He's more
| like a European right wing populist than Reagan or Bush sr.
| danans wrote:
| > Creating a culture where men can attain dignity and social
| respect by providing for their family and staying with the
| mother of their kids matters. And creating a culture where men
| are told it's okay not to do those things creates harm
|
| Teaching people how to pull together and get through tough
| times as a family together is a great thing to promote, but re-
| stigmatizing divorce to the extent it once was is not a way to
| achieve that.
| Longlius wrote:
| It's not merely expectations but intergenerational poverty. I
| get that you think that you came from a less privileged
| background than your in-laws and in some respects that's true,
| but even being able to immigrate to the US indicates a degree
| of social mobility that simply isn't available to the
| intergenerationally poor in rural America. These are people who
| grew up in places without anything to do, no training for
| higher-paid professions available, and who pay first-world
| expenses simply to exist.
|
| How does one get ahead with 4 children and maybe $2000 of
| household income per month when rents eat half of that.
|
| This isn't simply a problem of moral failing on the individual
| level but of failings at the societal level to provide a means
| for these people to escape poverty.
| temp3444 wrote:
| [deleted]
| Longlius wrote:
| Depends on the immigrant family. The ones from Mexico and
| Central American certainly don't have much, but those
| coming from East and South Asia who immediately start
| businesses on arrival have access to more wealth (either
| personally or via social connections) than many native-born
| Americans will have access to in their entire lives.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| > Simple, don't have 4 children.
|
| Okay, but some people do, so what then? Fuck them and their
| 4 kids who did nothing wrong but be born?
| temp3444 wrote:
| We need to seriously stop treating having kids as some
| kind of accident that just happens. It's extremely simple
| to not have children. American society is free, which
| means you are free to fail and fuck things up. If someone
| has 4 children the only person to blame is the parents.
| If you can't control yourself, get yourself sterilized.
| We don't need more of your insane lineage that can't
| prevent themselves from having 4 children on this planet.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Okay, but again, so we have 4 kids and people with 4
| kids. We can wave all the blame we want but all that ends
| up logically concluding is "fuck children in bad economic
| situations who did nothing to deserve their situation".
| We cannot unbirth children, so now they're here, how can
| we incentivize society so that when they grow up they
| don't end up putting future children in their current
| position?
| [deleted]
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Pros and cons.
|
| A big challenge with rigid social expectations is identifying
| the beneficial ones and removing the harmful ones. In practice,
| there tends to be little introspection about which traditional
| expectations help and which ones hurt. Instead, people appeal
| to tradition itself as evidence that an expectation is helpful.
| If we could more effectively iterate on these social
| expectations then we'd be able to more effectively optimize.
| But efforts to do this (e.g., discussion of topics like "toxic
| masculinity") are by-and-large rejected out of hand by
| traditionalists.
|
| Another challenge is that social expectations may help on
| average but they may completely fail in individual cases. For
| example, having both parents raise a child will, on average,
| lead to improved outcomes. But if we codify this as a rigid
| rule, then people are unable to escape abusive relationships
| where the presence of both parents is a negative. Social
| expectations are necessarily generalizations and people need
| the freedom to identify when they are not helpful for their
| particular situation and adjust accordingly.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| The tentatives to artificially engineer the society to be
| more just, fair and inclusive only resulted in a less just,
| less fair and less inclusive society.
|
| The society should be left to evolve on its own, in a natural
| way. If we don't want to replace small disasters with big
| disasters.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Civil rights for gay people and black people were
| criticized "artificially engineering society". As were
| voting rights for women or access to birth control.
| Subservient roles for women and labor roles for black
| people were seen as "natural." I think you'd be absolutely
| crazy to consider rights for these populations to have led
| to a "less just and less fair society."
|
| There is no such thing as natural society. Society is
| constructed by humans.
| dc-programmer wrote:
| I think the crux of the current debate is the tension
| between cultural liberalism and cultural socialism.
|
| The philosophy of the cultural liberals is to remove
| restrictions that inhibit people from living the social
| lives they want.
|
| The cultural socialists want to use the power of
| institutions to distribute a culture across the
| population. They believe their culture is societally
| optimal so reducing liberties to propagate it is morally
| justified.
|
| I'm sure most peoples beliefs lie somewhere in between
| the two. But the cultural socialism maximalists in the
| west have been getting louder and louder and it's
| beginning to terrify me.
|
| I predict in the next 5 years, womens' voting rights will
| be an actual political topic. It will start with "ironic"
| jokes and "rational" thinking but will get increasingly
| normalized in discourse.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| We've already seen Thiel float the "the world would be
| better if women couldn't vote" thing. Far right
| communities online already express sanitized versions of
| this belief system. You can see it when far right women
| end up in discussion spaces. Their participation is
| ultimately contingent on the approval of the men they are
| around, with sexist rejections of their contributions
| showing up frequently.
|
| We are already at the "ironic" jokes and "rational"
| thinking phase. Terrifying.
| dc-programmer wrote:
| There's a whole online subculture of women adopting
| traditional aesthetics and dressing like pilgrims. It's
| hard to gauge their sincerity, but they are "converting"
| to Catholicism and fundamentalist Islam.
|
| Being transgressive is definitely cool for disaffected
| trust fund kids who didn't get into Deloitte, but I think
| there are darker undercurrents like you are implying.
|
| The real irony in all of this is the post-modern and
| Marxist influences of the movement. Which is hilarious
| due to the Red Scare level of hysteria reactionaries have
| about those ideologies.
| usrn wrote:
| I think this subculture you've noticed might actually be
| part of that "Red Scare."
|
| I really don't like the "cultural socialism" phrase.
| There are too many connotations in it and it's probably
| too vague for everyone. The way I see it there are really
| three extremes you can take on any political issue: One
| is an authoritarian preservation (or restoration) of
| culture, another is the authoritarian deconstruction (or
| liberation) of culture, and one is the libertarian
| position (which is almost moderate by definition; the
| individual communities are left to figure out what they
| want.)
|
| The socialists/communists/bolsheviks (and in a more
| moderate sense, progressives) or in other words "The
| Left" are near the "authoritarian deconstruction"
| extreme. Examples of these might be the American
| progressives trying to take control of children's
| sexuality away from parents or the people writing laws
| against the cast system in India.
|
| The Fascists, monarchists, religious fundamentalists, and
| in a moderate sense conservatives, or in other words "The
| Right" are near the "authoritarian preservation" extreme.
| Examples of these include the Taliban, America First etc.
|
| The libertarians/liberals/anarchists are what we already
| know. Something I don't think people appreciate about
| them though is that they allow for consensus in some
| situations where none is achievable. People often confuse
| them for the Right because of the US's tradition of
| liberty and because of the freedom of association thing.
| They confuse them for the left because of how destructive
| anarchy is.
|
| None of these extremes are ideal. All degenerate into
| something horrible if you lean hard into any one. It's
| much easier to understand your own position on any topic
| along with someone else's because they become a vector of
| sorts made up of these.
|
| I think you've grouped the two authoritarian extremes
| under "cultural socialists" and are confused because
| they're different phenomena (often reactions to each
| other.)
| zozbot234 wrote:
| The extremes go far beyond your examples, in both
| directions. For extremes in the "authoritarian
| deconstruction" direction, the Great Proletarian Cultural
| Revolution in China, or the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia,
| would be well-known examples. On the "authoritarian
| reconstruction" side, we have many cases from fascist
| regimes to religious theocracies and many other examples.
| Even a "communist" ideology like North-Korean Juche has
| many elements involving authoritarian construction of a
| rather structured culture.
| usrn wrote:
| Precisely. I wanted to avoid painting a cartoonish and
| emotional picture though.
| dc-programmer wrote:
| I'm definitely not scared about a small subculture of
| Brooklyn art chicks and permanently online disaffected 20
| year old woman. I brought it up because monied interests
| have taken an interest in the aesthetic. The question is,
| why?
|
| Edit responding to your edit: I 100% agree that any
| extreme is bad. A society with no restrictions would be
| anarchy (note mores and peer pressure are means of
| restriction). But in a democratic society, anti-
| democratic ideas must be resisted. Once the structures of
| power are changed, it's almost impossible to reverse.
| Therefore, I believe it is imperative to call out these
| ideas for what they are.
|
| Also I disagree that progressives fall in the same bucket
| as leftists. All leftists are authoritarian leaning but
| progressives can be liberal or authoritarian.
|
| I don't think it's usefully either to endlessly
| categorize political movements. If you are partial to
| post-modern thought, you could say categorizing things is
| a way of exerting power of them. This has clearly been
| the runbook historically of dismantling the left in
| America. This is mostly self afflicted due to the
| tendency of the left to over intellectualize things, but
| there has been a conscious effort by provocateurs to
| infiltrate left wing groups and cause discord.
| usrn wrote:
| Sorry, I've edited it again (I tend to do that a lot,
| it's easier than typing everything out only to discover
| I've used up my post quota for the day.) Liberals are
| definitely not in the same bucket as leftists, they're
| arguably just another kind of libertarian.
|
| Democracy is another extreme you don't want. Many people
| have written about how destructive it can be and should
| definitely be balanced with something slower (in the past
| this was an aristocracy/monarchy, in the US and Canada
| you have the Senate.) I really don't think maximizing
| democracy should be an objective.
|
| To respond to your edit: This categorization is a pretty
| old one that comes from the french revolution. I think it
| makes empathy easier which makes political ideas much
| easier to communicate and reason about. Precise
| definitions and catagories (as long as they're
| consistent) are not oppression, they're necessary for
| communication.
| dc-programmer wrote:
| We reached the max comment depth. I don't disagree with
| your points. One point of clarification is that when I
| say democracy I mean republican or parliamentarian style
| government.
|
| I sympathize with the critique of democracy. However the
| failure of more authoritarian systems of governing is and
| always has been the lack of transparency and trust. In a
| democratic style of government there's at least an
| attempt of oversight. Good luck making a FOIA request to
| a king or private corporation. Autocrats abuse this flaw
| to amass power and wealth for themselves at the expense
| of the population.
|
| Democracy is also inextricably tied to civil liberties.
| Disenfranchised citizens have less recourse when their
| civil liberties are attacked
| stevespang wrote:
| adventured wrote:
| Replace "expects" with "encourages" and you'd be on to something.
|
| Women are massively encouraged in society today, by a barrage of
| persistent and positive messaging across all mediums. Young men
| are not. The results were highly predictable and it has been
| warned about for multiple decades at this point.
|
| Women are subsidized and favored in their pursuit of education.
| Men are not.
|
| Today from a young age girls are told they can do anything, they
| can be anything. Today they're openly told they're better than
| boys and that's not considered sexist. Women walk around with
| shirts or other propaganda formats that say: The Future is
| Female. That's hyper sexist, hyper bigoted against men, and yet
| in society it's tolerated. This cultural behavior is regressive
| and intentionally promoting of inequality.
|
| The pendulum is increasingly swinging hard against men. If you
| want a collapsed society, allow it to continue. The deficit is
| already so bad it'll take decades to repair, in society broadly,
| from the damage that has occurred amongst younger males.
| Ozzie_osman wrote:
| Perhaps there is a reason that historically, a lot of cultures
| (and religions) encouraged stable family units, and discouraged
| or even tried to outlaw breakage of that pattern (ie extra
| marital sex, which at the time was very likely to lead to kids
| out of wedlock, and divorce).
| chmod600 wrote:
| Good parents don't just create good children, they also create
| good _parents_.
|
| Government programs (as presently conceived) will never catch up
| in terms of effectiveness because they don't have this self-
| replicating behavior. They can provide relief but not much in the
| way of lasting improvement.
|
| We should focus a lot more efforts socially and politically to
| create self-sustaining families and avoid culture and policies
| that disrupt them.
| twofornone wrote:
| andrewclunn wrote:
| > The people with the most money and education--the class most
| responsible for shaping culture and customs--ensure that their
| children are raised in stable homes. But actively undermine the
| norm for everyone else.
|
| Yep. If you were raised in poverty, the WORST thing you can do is
| listen to "approved" mainstream advice. That culture / media
| isn't there to help you, but to sell you things or make money on
| telling you what you want to hear.
|
| I'll go one step further and say that if you are a man born into
| poverty, check out Aaron Clarey's asshole consulting. Don't agree
| with everything he says, but as a starting point, that's 10 times
| better than what your guidance counselor will tell you.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| You quoted from TFA:
|
| > The people with the most money and education--the class most
| responsible for shaping culture and customs
|
| which is another example of the bullshit-y parts of TFA.
|
| 1. the idea that "the people with the most money and education"
| form some sort of coherent cultural and ideological group is
| absurd. Does anyone think that the raft of Republican members
| of congress who went to ivy league schools shape culture and
| customs in the same way that, say, Beyonce does?
|
| 2. the idea that "the people with the most money and education"
| actually shape culture and customs is also open to substantive
| debate. Are they influential? Of course. Do they have some sort
| of exclusive control ? Doubtful.
|
| 3. the idea that there is a single culture or single set of
| customs is absurd on its face.
| franciscop wrote:
| So I strongly disagree with that point, which could be based in
| cultures (specially in Spain where I have more experience
| seeing these things); I haven't seen enough of the mainstream
| USA advice, but for example I believe mainstream advice is
| still to get a degree in the USA, while if a degree costed
| $100k+ I believe in Spain it'd def not be mainstream advice and
| instead to tell people to strongly consider other alternatives.
| Luckily a degree is almost free here, so the advice is to get
| it, specially those degrees that have good job prospects.
|
| So I'm genuinely curious about examples you could give about
| this? Do you consider e.g. /r/personalfinance as "approved"
| mainstream advice? I believe it caters fairly well to the low-
| middle-even-high classes, but probably not to the lowest
| (homeless) or highest (super-rich).
| AvocadoPanic wrote:
| r/personalfinance is largely fine if you've made it that far.
|
| I read the comment you replied to to be the, follow your
| passion, university is required, lean-in, girl-boss, live
| your dream, it takes a village, shitty advice that permeates
| culture in the US.
|
| The messaging that children out of wedlock is pro-poverty and
| marriage is anti-poverty is nearly non-existant in the main
| stream. Same with the negative outcomes of boys raised by
| single mothers.
| franciscop wrote:
| Okay University required is the one I knew in the US that
| should be controversial but is not too much yet.
|
| Follow your passion seems to be similar to live your dream,
| and I can see that being terrible advice for young lower-
| class. This is AFAIK _only_ a path encouraged for rich kids
| in Spain and only to certain extent, since they will
| inherit whatever. But probably due to chronic young
| unemployment, our society highly critical to studying
| degrees without good opportunities. Ironically the only
| places I 've seen this in Spain as advice from high class
| to everyone is where we've strongly imported USA culture,
| among "modern entrepreneurs".
|
| Had never heard of "girl-boss" nor "it takes a village" as
| financial advice! Reading about girl-boss [1], I'm assuming
| (please correct me if I'm wrong!) it's about empowerment
| and not taking a "normal" job and instead try to be your
| own boss, specially aimed at young women. Which is great if
| you are upper class and can fall back to your family for
| help, but obviously a terrible idea if you don't have a
| plan-b/good fallback, resulting in poverty. Right?
|
| And about "it takes a village"? I cannot find much relevant
| info, everything seems to be about getting help from your
| community. Does it mean that it's great advice if you are
| surrounded by successful driven people, but bad advice if
| the community is a poor one riffled with crime?
|
| Sorry for so many questions, most are confirmations to make
| sure I understood things correctly
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girlboss
| AvocadoPanic wrote:
| Yes generally that's it.
|
| Girl-bossing is also the desire / goal to achieve success
| in a traditionally male fashion; Elizabeth Holms, Sheryl
| Sandberg, Carly Fiorina, etc. The obscured bit to this is
| that men typically don't value this sort of success in
| their wives or mothers of their children and many woman
| chasing this success end up in mid-level make-work jobs
| anyway.
|
| It takes a village
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_takes_a_village
|
| With the breakdown of marriage and the increase of 'non-
| traditional' families / decrease in nuclear families,
| this proverb was bandied about as marketing for 'non-
| traditional' families. Of course in practice the outcomes
| match what you'd expect a child raised by an African
| village to be.
| andrewclunn wrote:
| Honest questions deserve honest answers. First, I am coming
| from a US-centric position (the article dealt with that, I am
| from the US, and the my response deals specifically with that
| culture... though Canadians likely would benefit from it
| too). As to education and degrees, there is a HUGE divergence
| in the types of degrees that are worth the money, and those
| which act more as institutional pyramid schemes. This
| distinction is well known on the example advice channel I
| recommended, but largely absent from mainstream culture.
|
| As to what qualifies as mainstream culture, before the
| internet it was a clear delineation (based on broadcast and
| print), now there are perhaps tiers (and that's a broader
| conversation). One thing to note is that the more direct
| influence that institutional power has via gatekeeping (by
| directly promoting ideas through things like textbook
| publishers or narrowing discussion via tech censorship
| policies) the more the area caters to the desires of those in
| power, rather than those using / consuming the service. I
| steer clear of reddit myself because several times in the
| past when areas have become too divergent from "acceptable
| narrative" they have been closed down.
|
| There's plenty more that could be said on this topic, but
| that would likely require a book on epistemology. Hope that
| answered your questions about my intentions and views at
| least.
| Filligree wrote:
| > So I'm genuinely curious about examples you could give
| about this? Do you consider e.g. /r/personalfinance as
| "approved" mainstream advice? I believe it caters fairly well
| to the low-middle-even-high classes, but probably not to the
| lowest (homeless) or highest (super-rich).
|
| Nothing on Reddit is 'mainstream'. Most people have never
| visited the site.
| franciscop wrote:
| Fair enough, that's why I was asking whether Reddit advice
| is similar somehow to mainstream advice. What would you
| consider mainstream advice then? Do you have any article
| that shows mainstream advice (for the USA)?
| geraldwhen wrote:
| The USA isn't California. The median college graduating debt
| is 20-30k, not 100k.
| franciscop wrote:
| This has been a really good read! Thanks for sharing, the only
| place where I had a strong disagreement was this, which could
| definitely be based on cultural differences:
|
| > The people with the most money and education--the class most
| responsible for shaping culture and customs--ensure that their
| children are raised in stable homes. But actively undermine the
| norm for everyone else.
|
| I am not from the USA but I don't believe this is true in e.g.
| Europe. At least in my country (Spain) and where I live now
| (Japan), it is understood even by the upper class that it's
| better to live in an educated society than in a criminal one.
| Sure there's _some_ within that upper class that might want it,
| but I 'd say it's a tiny minority of classists and not the upper
| class overall. But I also believe that in these countries the
| upper class is closer to the middle/lower classes, while in the
| USA I can see how the huge gap might make more people in the
| upper class think that it's an impossible goal and just give up
| and try to isolate the classes.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Criminality and education are not distinct. Better-educated
| people commit crimes at roughly the same rate, they are just
| far less likely to be caught. Either the nature of thier crimes
| does not lend itself to reporting (embezzelment v. bank
| robbery) or they recieve different treatment by the legal
| system.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >Better-educated people commit crimes at roughly the same
| rate,
|
| I'm gonna call bullshit on this.
|
| Even if you assume all demographics are snorting coke and
| beating their wives equally there are so, so, so many laws
| you can just trivially comply with by expending a little bit
| more money and there is so much less incentive for petty
| crime when you are in a career track where misdemeanors
| matter.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Tax evasion, child abuse, embezzlement, drug abuse/dealing,
| drunk driving ... all crimes that can easily go unreported
| and if are reported result in reduced punishments for those
| who can afford good lawyers. Look at Rush Limbaugh. Plenty
| of drug-related criminality there but zero convictions.
| Will smith just attacked someone on camera but just walked
| away without even an interview by police. It isn't just the
| ultra-famous/rich. They are just the best examples of what
| privilege really means. (And the Russ/Oscars incidents are
| polar opposites of the political spectrum.)
| franciscop wrote:
| > "Better-educated people commit crimes at roughly the same
| rate"
|
| That's a really strong claim IMHO, do you have sources? I
| would strongly expect that better education is correlated
| with lower crime rates, and all research and articles I've
| been able to find so far seem to suggest that:
|
| > Results show that increased college graduation rates
| corresponds to a significant decrease in the crime rate. A 5%
| increase in the college graduation rate, for instance,
| produces an 18.7% reduction in the homicide rate
|
| [1] https://as.nyu.edu/content/dam/nyu-
| as/politics/documents/Gon...
|
| [2] https://criminal-
| justice.iresearchnet.com/crime/education-an...
| goto11 wrote:
| > they are just far less likely to be caught
|
| Perhaps, but I wonder how you get reliable statistics on the
| demographics of the criminals which don't get caught?
| karpierz wrote:
| > Better-educated people commit crimes at roughly the same
| rate, they are just far less likely to be caught.
|
| While controlling for income? Or without considering
| confounders?
| playpause wrote:
| My feeling is that the 'undermining' the author refers to is
| not a conscious attempt to keep the lower classes down. It's
| just middle/upper class people spouting fashionable political
| views, going along with the 'right message', and not really
| thinking about it. When it comes to their own personal
| behavioural decisions that will affect their kids, they take it
| more seriously, basing their decisions on their deep-down sense
| of 'how things really are', and then they come up with some
| kind of rationalisation of how this conservative behaviour
| actually fits in with their anti-conservative political views.
| This rationalising process has become second nature and they
| don't notice they are doing it at all.
| anovikov wrote:
| TL;DR: poor men will only do for women whatever is necessary to
| get laid, these days, almost nothing is necessary anymore so they
| do just that. Rich men need children who are aware of who they
| are and get decent upbringing, to pass down their wealth, so they
| care for their children a lot better. With poor men having
| nothing to pass on, and also realising their lives are a failure
| and it doesn't make their kids a good service to pass on their
| life habits to the kids, why would they bother?
| croes wrote:
| >In 1960, across social classes, the vast majority of children
| were raised by both of their birth parents. By 2005, there was a
| massive divergence.
|
| Could it simply be because in the 60s women were more dependent
| on men and their income than nowadays?
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| My purpose is to make money for a woman and children, thats it? I
| might as well be a cow providing milk. Wow no shit, that doesn't
| sound attractive to me.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| Welcome to the club. If you find something better, remember
| this comment and message me.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| I doubt the upper class consciously tries to keep the lower
| classes stuck in poverty.
|
| There are so many factors here the article doesn't touch on. Such
| as men's biological desire to maximize sexual partners, women's
| biological desire to maximize quality of and support for
| offspring, and cultural variation of expectations among all
| classes.
|
| In my circle most of us were raised by parents in unhappy
| marriages. (Often for religious reasons.) The few happy marriages
| appeared surreal like some fake Hollywood production. So the same
| norms that keep families 'intact' can have a lot of unhealthily
| effects.
|
| There's also less of a ramp or ladder for men who do want to
| support the family to commit to such an obligation confidently.
| imtringued wrote:
| > I doubt the upper class consciously tries to keep the lower
| classes stuck in poverty.
|
| When I look at single family zoning I don't believe what you
| said one bit. A lot of people think it is their right to keep
| people out of locations where "all the jobs" are.
|
| The fact that jobs concentrate in the bay area is just as much
| part of urban planning as preventing people from moving there.
| If people truly wanted to stop people from moving to their
| location all they would have to do is say no to commercial real
| estate but that is not what they do.
| pjdemers wrote:
| >> others require him to get along with unpleasant customers and
| coworkers, and to maintain a submissive attitude toward the
| boss."
|
| These are requirements of high paying jobs, too.
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| "I write and read about the culture and habits of elites"
|
| He actually writes about the culture and habits of rich kids.
| They're not elites in any practical sense. That word does not
| mean "inheritor." The sycophancy of the rich, the presumption
| that they should be expected to be somehow better than the hoi
| polloi, is really getting tedious.
|
| Someone is elite because they've accomplished something, not
| because they've been handed something. Attempting to apply that
| word to the wallet is common, and remains incorrect and gross.
| Yes, I know the reader can very easily Google up examples. The
| reader should also be able to name cases where Googling up
| examples gives hilariously wrong information.
|
| Rich kids have always been slackers, in every society in human
| history. The real change here is that we've stopped taxing them,
| so "shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in two generations" doesn't
| apply anymore.
|
| Ayn Rand was wrong. Stop expecting wealth from parents to create
| high quality people.
|
| Every study ever done on the matter has shown what common sense
| and literature have said all along: rich people are just lazy. It
| is almost certainly the clearer version "everyone who can be lazy
| is, but many cannot afford to be."
|
| Hell, I would be.
|
| We've forgotten that because we now believe that they're earning
| their mega-wealth by giving it to bankers to be grown for them.
| We pretend to ourselves that because they can pay people to
| produce profits from money they weren't involved in earning,
| they're somehow doing something. Then, we point out extremely
| rare individual counterexamples and say "see? See? Elon exists."
|
| The idea that their "doing nothing" is a result of lack of social
| pressure is disastrously undermined by that they've also done
| nothing when there was social pressure, throughout all of
| history; even to the point that several royalties fell because
| nobody in the royalty could be bothered to stop looking at art
| and having sex long enough to keep the lights on.
|
| We should want evidence of claims like this.
|
| Even despite the education and resource gap, even scaled to the
| popular bin sizes, in all of history, the vast majority of
| invention and business success has come from the unwashed masses.
|
| The null hypothesis supports this as entirely expected, unrelated
| to what society requests. No society in history has achieved
| otherwise.
| tyronehed wrote:
| What an amazing article, and bravo to the researchers for this
| amazing analysis.
|
| Now, I will get onto my down voting. I have watched generations
| of men devote himself to video games. They develop amazing skills
| in these artificial worlds. At the same time, I was reading tons
| of books, writing a few of my own and generally avoiding TV and
| video game. Of course, I was the freak. But I cannot wonder if
| that life in the fantasy land a video game has not left its
| traces in these men.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| > " _I was reading tons of books, writing a few of my own..._ "
|
| How is this not the a different flavor of the same "fantasy
| land"? Even if the majority were non-fiction, there's a
| difference between acquiring skills and acquiring trivia [1];
| pop non-fiction is not all that deep.
|
| [1] And I say this as a person whose book collection is
| measured in tons.
| gilbetron wrote:
| Reading books are another type of fantasy land - games vs books
| have their pluses and minuses. Video games can be far more
| social, but can be vapid. Books can also be vapid, and very
| isolating, and give you the false belief that you are
| experiencing things. Books and games can be intellectually and
| emotionally stimulating. I've read a lot and played a lot, and,
| as usual, I've found a balance to be the best. I don't read as
| much as I used to (at least fiction), and going back and
| reading the occasional fiction book now and then has given me a
| different perspective on books.
| dijit wrote:
| Have you ever considered that it could be a multitude of
| reasons?
|
| It's easy to preach on high about enjoying books but I think
| that's folly, we all enjoy different things and just because
| yours is "socially accepted" (for lack of a better term)
| doesn't mean it's inherently better. What you read is usually
| more important than the fact that you read, for example.
|
| Regardless of that particular point: I find that men,
| especially young men, are consistently being told that their
| behaviour is bad. No matter what they do.
|
| If they seek career status then they're contributing to sexism
| by not making space for women (an extreme example but one I
| have been accused of openly).
|
| If they seek male companionship and shared experiences they're
| accused of "lad" behaviour and if it's in public they're
| usually targeted by police for loitering or giving an aura of
| unsafety.
|
| If the world is hostile to you, why not retreat into a world
| where you basically put everything aside and feel a sense of
| accomplishment and fulfilment from a virtual world? The benefit
| is that nobody makes you feel bad about it while you're doing
| it.
|
| It's only after the fact that people look down on you for
| enjoying yourself.
|
| Note: I don't really play games and I read a lot of books like
| you, but I make games and I really despise that people look
| down on my customers for enjoying themselves.
| notacoward wrote:
| There must be psychological studies of _giving up_ somewhere, as
| it seems to be an increasingly common behavior and not limited
| just to men and marriage. From the "economic anxiety" of the
| (especially rural) US right to the "millennial malaise" that's
| slightly left if anything, it seems like people are giving up on
| college, good jobs, buying a house, relationships, and most
| especially all forms of government. Across the political and
| economic spectrum, you can hear people calling to tear it all
| down. You don't hear the people just quietly "dropping out" but
| they definitely exist too.
|
| Note that I'm not criticizing or looking down on people for
| giving up. It's a rational response when you believe that the
| standards are being set unrealistically high or you're going to
| be blamed/condemned no matter what you do. Why expend your energy
| on a lost cause? Save it for something you can win. I've done it
| myself, and called it strategic thinking. Everyone who has quit a
| job or broken off a relationship has given up. What I'm saying is
| only that it seems _more common_ than it used to be. People turn
| to it more quickly. So called "deaths of despair" have been
| trending upward for quite some time. "Lottery or nothing"
| thinking ( _ahem_ crypto) is everywhere. For people at the
| margins, teetering on the very edge between giving up vs. hoping
| against hope and soldiering on even though they expect to fail,
| the balance seems to have shifted more toward giving up.
|
| What I'd like to understand is _why_. Have circumstances really
| changed in a way that generates more despair than before? Are
| there messages we as a society are sending that encourage giving
| up instead of persevering? I don 't have the answer, but it seems
| like a far more general phenomenon than just absent fathers and
| it's not limited to one political or economic group.
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| This is the question I hope to have answered. I feel that the
| article is touching on one aspect of a larger issue.
|
| There has to be more than one factor here compounding the
| issue. If it was a single factor, fixing it would be a lot
| easier.
| gammarator wrote:
| The author provides laughably little justification for his claims
| for the causes of these phenomena.
|
| For a more meaty examination, I'd recommend Robert Putnam's "Our
| Kids: The American Dream in Crisis."
| Helmut10001 wrote:
| I don't understand why it is stressed that all of this is
| connected to marriage (or absense of). Parents walking away from
| responsibility is a cause for problems in children, no matter
| whether you are married or not. Also, I doubt that the degree of
| married parents is connected to class. We have both a PhD, a
| child, and live together for 15 years, failing both to see a
| reason for marriage.
| jl6 wrote:
| Maybe there are some saintly principled people who will never
| walk away from responsibility no matter what, for whom marriage
| adds no value, and maybe there are some feckless unprincipled
| people who will walk away from responsibility at the slightest
| provocation, for whom marriage also adds no value, but maybe
| there is a large intermediate population who may occasionally
| feel a moderate urge to walk but are dissuaded by the added
| difficulty that breaking a marriage presents (stigma, cost,
| legal process), and thus decide to stick it out. Maybe marriage
| is for those people.
| Helmut10001 wrote:
| Point taken. This argument is what I expected to read in the
| article and I agree, it seems like a valid aspect.
| hirundo wrote:
| > Although this may be considered an unflattering
| characterization...we have found no evidence to contradict the
| basic general principle that men will do whatever is required in
| order to obtain sex, and perhaps not a great deal more.
|
| I just watched "Dancing with the Birds", a documentary on Netflix
| with great footage of male birds of paradise and bower birds
| seducing their mates. It strongly underlines the above
| proposition. These birds perform absurd, bizzare, wildly
| expensive behaviors for no other purpose but that the chicks dig
| it. After that the male gets under the female tail feathers, and
| that's his last contribution to fatherhood.
|
| I think we typically underestimate how much this applies to
| humans, and how much female political power is also sexual power,
| and visa versa, for good and ill.
| VictorPath wrote:
| > You put a guy in a chaotic and impoverished circumstances. And
| then you decide not to expect anything of him.
|
| How about not put them in chaotic and impoverished circumstances?
| Sweden does not have these problems at the scale the US has.
|
| Also after World War II, a working class guy could get a job at a
| factory in Detroit, and be able to afford his wife staying home
| to raise kids in a house he owned, commuting in a car he owned.
| Maybe going to school on the GI Bill at some point. All of this
| is gone. People like Charles Murray spent decades attacking the
| US working class, and now he bemoans that wage slaves are not
| interested in pursuing the Sisyphean tasks he has laid out.
|
| All of this is concurrent with the material destruction of
| working class life in the US, which is why the first thing
| Henderson has to try to knock out is it has anything to do with
| material conditions.
|
| It was a hell of a lot better to be a working class man in 1960
| then 2005. Two thirds of union jobs are now nonunionized etc.
| stevenally wrote:
| I wonder did the destruction of unions and the export of jobs
| have anything to do with it? Also the destruction of mom 'n pop
| retail. What about TV and the internet, destroying in person
| social interaction? What about the large scale jailing of black
| youth, for non violent crimes, three strikes and all that? I
| dunno about any of this, but the article is just recycling old
| right wing tropes.
| pojzon wrote:
| Soon all low profile jobs will be performed by robots (one way or
| another). We wont run from that.
|
| Im curious what rich will have to say to few billion ppl on Earth
| then.
|
| "Dude just get a better job"
|
| "Just try harder" "Some generic slogan that doesnt work in
| reality.
|
| The whole modern world is a ponzi scheme. There have to be ppl
| starving so that I can write that post on my iphone while sitting
| on the toilet in 4 bedroom appartment..
|
| For that to change we need a system change. And we all know it
| will never happen, because humans have greed and inequality
| encoded in DNA. (Its actually true if you search for right
| papers).
|
| Which is extremely sad, because our human nature is probably what
| will destroy us in the long run.
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _" Although this may be considered an unflattering
| characterization...we have found no evidence to contradict the
| basic general principle that men will do whatever is required in
| order to obtain sex, and perhaps not a great deal more. (One of
| us characterized this in a previous work as, 'If women would stop
| sleeping with jerks, men would stop being jerks.') If in order to
| obtain sex men must become pillars of the community, or lie, or
| amass riches by fair means or foul, or be romantic or funny, then
| many men will do precisely that."_
|
| I hate to be the person to point this out, but this ideal has all
| of the same problems as the incel plan. Women are going to find
| whoever they think is attractive attractive and there's nothing
| you can do about it no matter how high or low your social aims.
|
| Yes, a lot of people would love to rewrite human nature to make
| pudgy men with stable jobs the peak of male form but that is as
| ridiculous as it sounds. :-)
|
| If you want to do anything about this it's going to have to
| involve changing men.
| 21723 wrote:
| As a middle-aged man who's been studying this stuff for a while,
| I'd like to throw in my observations.
|
| We are in a Masculine Crisis, and both men and women are
| suffering, because gender isn't zero-sum, and a society that
| damages men is just as harmful to heterosexual women, who
| struggle to find men. Late-stage capitalism's breakdown of the
| family (which it molded into a bourgeois form, then let rot)
| happened in black communities about 40 years before it started to
| hit rural whites. This makes it hard to sympathize with the so-
| called "white working class", who clutched their pearls and
| moralized and showed no sympathy at all when this dysfunction was
| hitting blacks in Detroit, half a century ago.
|
| What is a Masculine Crisis? Well, I think this sentence hits it
| straight on:
|
| _Some of the jobs he can get don't pay enough to give him the
| self-respect he feels he needs, and others require him to get
| along with unpleasant customers and coworkers, and to maintain a
| submissive attitude toward the boss._
|
| When you tell men that the only way to be masculine is to
| "provide", and then deprive them of all means to provide except
| to subject oneself to the whims of a high-status person--a person
| given that status not on merit but simple random accidents of
| heredity--you leave them without a decent choice at all. Not
| playing is no option (a man must "provide") but every play is a
| losing one (the requisite self-emasculation of subordination).
| Whether this is a condition of low expectations (society has
| given up on men) or high ones (as workplace pressures mount, due
| to the erosion of worker's rights and dignity) is irrelevant;
| either way, it shuts people down.
|
| Of course, the experience is pretty awful for women, too. Work,
| for 95% of people in this society, is just horrid. No one should
| have to do stupid shit to survive--I hope we can agree on that. I
| just don't think this particular social ill is as gutting for
| women as it is for men.
|
| When it comes to the Masculine Crisis, we on the left are really
| missing the opportunity. Ex falso quodlibet; principle of
| (possibly literal) explosion. When no options exist for someone,
| he tends to make one. I'm not an accelerationist of any kind
| (leftist or rightist) but acceleration is happening. Alas, the
| left is so deep in the cul-de-sac of gender being entirely
| socially constructed (which is not true) and therefore
| meaningless (which it's not) that they can't figure out how to
| operate in this environment. So, instead, the Masculine Crisis is
| left to be exploited by the center-right (Jordan Peterson) or
| worse, the actual fascists.
|
| Conditions like this produce war. Why? Because five thousand
| years of human history have produced exactly one situation in
| which a man can be subordinate and still accept himself as a man
| --to pick up a weapon and join an army of some kind. Mind you, I
| don't want war; I'm staunchly against it except as a last resort.
| However, conditions like those in the modern workplace (except
| for those born into hereditary wealth) are at such a level as to
| throw young men into hopelessness... and they will often do
| anything for those who promise any kind of hope, no matter false.
| karpierz wrote:
| The article cites an anecdote about a young father who sat around
| the house arguing, fighting and drinking. He ends up getting
| kicked out of the house.
|
| The 1960s version of this story instead ends with the husband
| beating his wife behind closed doors without repercussions.
|
| Which is preferable?
| walkhour wrote:
| > the husband beating his wife behind closed doors without
| repercussions
|
| Families were much bigger back then. The extended family was
| always around. Communities were much tighter and actually
| existed.
|
| I think you don't have a good understanding of those times if
| you think women could be beaten around without repercussions,
| and honestly, thinking women are so helpless smells of sexism.
| dijit wrote:
| > I think you don't have a good understanding of those times
| if you think women could be beaten around without
| repercussions
|
| Or, you don't.
|
| It is definitely true that domestic violence was in the realm
| of "basically normal", I'd guesstimate 20% of households had
| an abusive person in them: and if you were married and your
| partner was not physically violent it was considered that
| they were a "good person".
|
| This swings both ways more than you think, my grandfather
| (mothers father) was very physically abusive, a point which
| he was mocked for (derisively) openly in the pub (but that's
| about the only repercussion). My great grand mother (mothers-
| mothers mother) was abusive towards my great grandfather.
| Which he was mocked for (jovially) openly by the whole
| family.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| > domestic violence was in the realm of "basically normal",
| I'd guesstimate 20% of households had an abusive person
|
| Can you cite this -- or is it a made up fact to support
| your pre-existing beliefs?
| trevorboaconstr wrote:
| I was unable to find extended statistics, but DMV rates
| over the past 3 decades seem to have fallen dramatically.
| During the 1950s there were no laws to protect battered
| women and assaults on women were not considered as a
| crime. Even in 1960 New York domestic violence cases are
| transferred from criminal court to civil court, where
| only civil procedures apply. The husband never faces as
| harsh penalties as he would suffer if he was found guilty
| in criminal court for assaulting a stranger.
|
| "The rate of domestic violence declined 63%, from 13.5
| victimizations per 1,000 persons age 12 or older in 1994
| to 5.0 per 1,000 in 2012 (appendix table 3)."
|
| - https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/ndv0312.pdf
|
| Also, getting accurate statistic pre 1960s for DMV is
| likely going to be difficult. Here's a short TIME piece
| illustrating how views on DMV can alter studies and how
| DMV is qualified/quantified given the times.
|
| - https://time.com/3426225/domestic-violence-therapy/
|
| Take a look at some of these poster, DMV was more or less
| normalized in the cultural ethos at the time:
| https://ibb.co/279sjZ2
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Sure -- but if we double the other direction (from 1990
| to 1960), we get 27 victimizations per 1000 or 2.7%.
|
| That would be an order of magnitude below the
| "guesstimate" -- and why I asked.
|
| While something may _feel_ common, it might nevertheless
| not be as high as 20%.
|
| It's okay to admit it felt common without making up
| statistics -- and just say that we don't have good
| information.
| dijit wrote:
| It's a guesstimate. As stated.
|
| The normalisation of domestic violence 30-50 years ago is
| going to be hard to find statistically, as things like
| that are not going to be in crime statistics, obviously.
|
| Everything I said was anecdotal, from the midlands in
| England- but it matches other experiences from southern
| Scotland and East Coast US.
|
| I guesstimate 20% because it "felt" like 1 in 5 families
| had someone abusive in them, at least of my social class.
|
| It was normal to hear that so-and-so hits his wife or
| that so-and-so has an unruly wife at home and that's why
| he doesn't come out or whatever.
|
| Admittedly, the social class I was in (extensive use of
| social clubs and pubs for drinking) likely had a larger
| proportion of this kind of people.
|
| But, it's a guesstimate. As clearly stated.
| [deleted]
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Okay -- but that's just you making up facts.
|
| The only cited number is 1.3%... and entire order of
| magnitude lower, and it's since dropped to 0.5%. That is,
| the only documented instances are an entire order of
| magnitude lower.
|
| I think you "guesstimated" a fake number to pretend your
| personal views are more objective than they actually are.
| greedo wrote:
| I was born in the Sixties, and my parents married in the
| Fifties. The idea that everyone lived in the same area they
| were born in was already not the norm. I think between the
| Great Depression and WW2, the difficulty of moving to new
| places became much lower. So there were many families that
| didn't have multiple generations under one roof. And even so,
| that didn't prevent abuse from happening.
| johnny53169 wrote:
| Are you seriously trying to argue there was less domestic
| violence back then?
|
| Extended family can help, but they can just as well think you
| deserved it or turn a blind eye.
| HomeGear wrote:
| Hilariously off base. There were multiple mechanisms used to
| keep women from talking about abuse - not just physical.
| Divorce was shamed, "airing dirty laundry" was shamed, the
| economics of leaving, etc.
| lyaa wrote:
| I would argue that you are overestimating the help women used
| to get from extended families in terms of protection from
| abuse. That kind of life came along with rigid societal
| expectations, extremely limited economic opportunities for
| women, and harsh views on divorce.
|
| Many cultures around the world still have such communities
| and they are worse on average for women.
| jdrc wrote:
| Or he would be killed by his in-laws
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| What a strange mix of important observations about social
| conditions and mores and stuff verging on culture war bullshit
| regarding "elites" etc.
|
| For example:
|
| > Those who sit at or near the apex of the social ladder (who
| decide what behaviors are prestigious) have decided that family
| stability is unimportant.
|
| The author proceeds to quote an anecdote from a UN conference to
| supposedly back up this point.
|
| In reality, what is actually going on here has nothing to do with
| "elites" at all. There is a political ideology (to which I
| suspect the author at least somewhat subscribes) that puts a high
| priority on self-reliance, "pulling oneself up by one's own
| bootstraps" and an avoidance of state intervention in the lives
| of individuals. There is another political ideology which
| acknowledges that we all benefit when society offers support and
| assistance to people in need of help, in part because none of us
| really know when or if we may find ourselves experiencing bad
| luck or bad judgement or both.
|
| The latter political ideology wants to try to help and nurture
| everyone to whatever extent possible, to avoid judgement on the
| decisions/mistakes that people make and focus on how to get them
| back on their feet and how to minimize the social cost of those
| mistakes.
|
| The former ideology opposes these efforts, and uses the tools of
| both the law and of funding choices to try to limit the extent
| and availability of a social safety net, in the belief it is an
| overall negative influence on society and the individuals that
| comprise it.
|
| So when people who believe in the social safety net try to avoid
| condemning single parent families, what they are actually saying
| is not "family stability is unimportant". They are saying "we
| know that relationships sometimes, even often, do not work out,
| and we think that as a society we should provide as much support
| as we can so that the children and parents in such situations
| suffer the least harm possible."
|
| They are met with responses like Rob Henderson's, that
| mischaracterize their concern and empathy, and with responses
| from legislatures that essentially say "We're not spending our
| money to support poor people who make bad choices, they should
| get their act together and hold themselves to higher behavioral
| standards."
|
| I'm not taking a position here on whether either of these views
| is the correct one. But I do get tied of people like Henderson
| trying to fold fundamentally different conceptions about the role
| of government into some snide dig at "elites". There plenty of
| wealthy highly educated people in positions of economic,
| political and cultural power who both insist on the value of
| family stability AND refuse to provide meaningful support in
| cases where it isn't happening. Those people are "elites" too,
| just as much as people who suggest we should be more
| understanding and forgiving of these failures. Instead of taking
| cheap, meaningless shots in a useless culture war, it would be
| better to cogently lay out a rational basis for why your
| preferred political ideology is better for society overall, given
| the criticisms that already exist of its real world effects.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > What a strange mix of important observations about social
| conditions and mores and stuff verging on culture war bullshit
| regarding "elites" etc.
|
| I love how cryptocurrency and rust are "tired" topics but this
| shit isn't.
| floodle wrote:
| "Garbage in garbage out"
|
| Seriously?
|
| This whole article has a pretty offensive view of people. It
| reads like "nobody dares to say these things because they are
| unpleasant, but I'm brave enough to say them and therefore they
| must be true".
| jdrc wrote:
| I think that's what the author sells in general. Luxury beliefs
| sold to conservative men, but the analysis lacks depth
| xpe wrote:
| Does the author self-declare their philosophical and political
| beliefs?
|
| In my view, doing so is necessary for an author to be
| intellectually honest and open.
|
| Generally speaking, I'm not looking for an author to 'sneak in' a
| belief by way of a good narrative.
|
| I've read similar commentary by a socially conservative author
| writing under a pen name (Theodore Dalyrimple) [1]. He wrote a
| highly selective account that matched his beliefs. It is one
| thing to so this -- it is another thing to try to hide the
| underlying belief system which preceded the commentary.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Dalrymple
| rendall wrote:
| The argument should be true, or not, whatever the author's
| leanings. Why would you find an argument more or less
| convincing were the arguer to label themselves?
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| > This highly educated and affluent person prioritized stability
| for her own children. But refused to publicly endorse this value
| so that less fortunate children could also benefit from family
| stability.
|
| Well, like most forms of discrimination, THAT'S THE POINT. These
| people aren't blindly going through life, discriminating without
| a cause. They know damned good and well what they're actually
| doing and will use the current state of things as justification
| for why they should continue the trend. In other words,
| conservatism. And no, it doesn't really matter what they call
| themselves or who they vote for, because money speaks louder than
| ballots.
|
| Most parents are well aware that their kids aren't inherently
| special past their genetic connection. But if you can
| automatically cut 30-70% of the population out of the competition
| for the opportunities you crave for your own kid, then that works
| to your benefit.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| A counter is that other countries (Japan, Korea, Italy, ...) that
| enforce traditional values have had a collapse in the birth rate.
|
| Having children out of wedlock is a safety valve for broken
| institutions that keeps the birth rate higher in the US than
| comparable countries; that plus relatively open integration helps
| us maintain our economy, welfare state, pensions, etc.
|
| If we turned the screws on women and men to discourage out-of-
| wedlock births we might find that people decide not to have
| children at all.
| selfhifive wrote:
| And? Isn't overpopulation a major concern? Why would you want
| higher birthrates? Already there exist more people than
| required for jobs in the economy.
| [deleted]
| iratewizard wrote:
| Japan and Korea are still high trust societies. I strongly
| encourage spending a month in either place if social structure
| interests you.
|
| Low birth rates are overstated as a problem when you accept
| that prosperity has natural ebs and flows. It it becomes a
| truly critical problem, fewer women will go into higher
| education and their society will course correct. While they're
| doing that, we'll be demonstrating to them how failed our
| theory of liberal society is.
| Aunche wrote:
| >If we turned the screws on women and men to discourage out-of-
| wedlock births we might find that people decide not to have
| children at all.
|
| I don't think that's such a bad thing. We can maintain a health
| population with immigration. There are plenty of places with
| more people than meaningful work opportunities.
| OminousWeapons wrote:
| > A counter is that other countries (Japan, Korea, Italy, ...)
| that enforce traditional values have had a collapse in the
| birth rate.
|
| Yes, but the value systems (at least in Asia) are quite
| different than even conservative ones in the US so I don't
| think that's a fair comparison. In Asia there is an expectation
| that relationships will lead to marriage, that you will marry
| well before thirty, that women will exit the workforce
| following marriage, that married couples will have children
| quickly, and that enormous amounts of resources will be spent
| on raising those children (especially in terms of education).
|
| The birth rate has gone down there because it is overly
| burdensome to be married and have children under these
| expectations. This is far different than even conservative
| expectations in the US which basically amount to the father
| should be able to hold down a job and show up.
| kenneth wrote:
| I mean, sure, among the parents. Plenty of people in Asia
| love relationships for the same reasons young people do in
| the West: sex, money, status, comfort, etc. -- without
| needing an end goal of launching families.
|
| The main difference is a lot of people here feel pressured by
| their families into a path to starting a family they don't
| want. Some balance those opposite forces, some just give in
| and have unwanted families while cheating to get what they
| really want.
|
| Anecdotally, I've noticed a clear contrast since moving from
| the USA to Asia. Cheating is far more common here. I've dated
| a number of "taken" women here, and the common thread always
| seemed to be that they kept their unwanted partner around for
| appearances to placate family pressure.
| solveit wrote:
| > In Asia there is an expectation that relationships will
| lead to marriage, that you will marry well before thirty,
| that women will exit the workforce following marriage
|
| I don't know about the rest of Asia, but the parts that were
| explicitly named (Japan, Korea) absolutely do not have this
| expectation.
| skrbjc wrote:
| I lived in Korea with my wife and while we were looking for
| work, she was told in several interviews that they didn't
| want to hire her because she was married and they assumed
| she would have a child and stop working.
|
| I don't know where you are getting the idea that that isn't
| the norm in those countries.
| jelly wrote:
| All of those countries have changed their expectations of men
| and women regardless of traditional values, just check the
| female labor force participation rates, and have had a similar
| swell of directionless men.
| karaterobot wrote:
| I don't buy that traditional values with regard to marriage are
| responsible with lower birth rates. People were married with
| high birthrates for hundreds of years, back when traditional
| values were just called values. Birth rates go down when people
| don't need a lot of children to work their farms or support
| them in old age, and when women get access to birth control and
| enter the workforce. This last part is tangentially related to
| marriage, but marriage (or the lack thereof) is not the cause.
| There are certainly other factors too, but those are the big
| ones.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| In traditional culture there was a higher birth rate,
| traditional culture would like to have a high birth rate
| today. It fails to do it because when it fights with modern
| conditions, women go on strike.
| jdrc wrote:
| This is probably closer to the truth. Some 'traditional'
| countries have the lowest birth rates in the EU and highest
| marraige rates, in contrast france has the most children
| outside marriage. It doesn't mean france is a ruined society,
| people live together, have kids, buy a house together, in fact
| france is healthier demographically than most EU.
|
| https://preview.redd.it/andluv2z50f11.png?auto=webp&s=3516c6...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Somewhat ironically, the US birth rate is propped up by
| Hispanic immigrants that do have traditional Family Values
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db318.htm
| alwayslikethis wrote:
| I think this is also in part (in addition to the immigration)
| because the US overall is a pretty happy country, compared to
| places like Korea or Japan. It is still possible to afford to
| have children, though increasingly difficult.
| gryson wrote:
| A "happy country"? I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean.
| In terms of the cost of having children, though, it is far
| more affordable in Japan than the US. Almost all childbirth
| costs are covered by the government, and free nursery school
| is also provided to all.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| I assumed they were referring to something like the
| Happiness Index to arrive at this comment.
|
| https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-
| rankings/happiest-...
| gryson wrote:
| The US has a low (and falling) birthrate. Not quite as low as
| South Korea, but certainly not high by any means.
| cebert wrote:
| The US is likely fine because our southern border is porous
| and anyone can walk right in. I don't see any indication that
| this will change. The benefit is even if the US birth rate is
| declining, we have an influx of younger individuals who can
| help keep the economy going.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > The US is likely fine because our southern border is
| porous and anyone can walk right in
|
| Go ahead try it.
| bruceb wrote:
| Um yes, you can walk in and get flown to a city in the US
| on the govt's credit card.
| [deleted]
| culopatin wrote:
| Just walking in doesn't make you part of the economy as you
| imply. I can't reject or support your claim of the border
| because I haven't seen it myself and if I google it I'm
| sure I'll find hits for either side, but I can tell you
| that being an illegal immigrant does not help either side.
| They can't get a normal job with a W2, so if they pay taxes
| (which many do because they are more afraid of the IRS than
| homeland security), it's probably not an accurate amount.
| So the only part of your economy that keeps moving is the
| uninsured motorist insurance and cash transactions in small
| groups. Obviously the declining rate is not a problem for
| the US otherwise they would simplify the immigration
| process and embrace that people want to move to this
| country to work and do good and increase the GDP
| convolvatron wrote:
| what about the innumerable businesses built on cheap
| labor?
| AvocadoPanic wrote:
| Except that the US will look and operate more and more like
| wherever these people came from.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| In 100 years or less, whites will be the minority in the
| US.
| [deleted]
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The fertility rate for minority ethnicities in the US has
| been declining rapidly to catch up to the decline curve
| for non Hispanic whites, so I'm not so sure this is true
| anymore. This is likely a combination of Westernization
| of younger minority generations (Hispanics specifically)
| and economic conditions broadly imho.
|
| https://ifstudies.org/blog/baby-bust-fertility-is-
| declining-...
| d4mi3n wrote:
| Is this a bad thing? The US was founded by immigrants.
| Immigration, diversity, and the US' history with these
| topics (good and bad) is huge part of the national
| cultural identity.
|
| As a US citizen, I think as long as we can maintain the
| cornerstones of our national heritage (democratic
| traditions, constitutional freedoms, etc) it should be
| fine if things change to reflect the demographics of our
| population.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| Immigration has a large history in the US, yes, but
| historically immigrants were encouraged (through social
| pressures) to assimilate part of their identity. Is that
| pressure for partial assimilation still there? Or do we
| encourage diversity so much now that anything goes?
| d4mi3n wrote:
| This is an interesting point!
|
| I think this really depends on what we, as a society,
| want to ensure we all have in common. If you identify as
| a US citizen, what do you have in common with your
| countrymen?
|
| Shared experiences and values can be hugely important.
| What those values should be is where I see a lot of
| contention.
|
| I see this as a matter of degree. I think democratic
| values are fairly uncontroversial for a democratic
| country (rule of law, political representation, and all
| the other underpinnings of a function democracy). I think
| most US citizens also support many egalitarian ideals
| like the concepts of basic human rights, freedom of
| opportunity, and freedom of expression (speech, religion,
| etc).
|
| Beyond that I'm really not sure!
| trynumber9 wrote:
| It is in fashion among certain people to reject
| assimilation. But if you look around it is definitely not
| fashionable among recent immigrants.
|
| They pretty much all want their kids to speak English and
| be American. They know it would be handicapping them if
| they didn't.
| AvocadoPanic wrote:
| Early US immigrants were pioneers wanting to carve a
| civilization on new continent.
|
| Would you consider the rule of law as a cornerstone of
| our national heritage? So many of today's immigrants seem
| to have little regard, evidenced by their illegal entry.
| igetspam wrote:
| Like the Irish? Or the Chinese? Or the Italians? They
| came here as pioneers? Or did they come looking for
| something better than what they were offered? Remember,
| we treated them like shit too. Maybe hating immigrants is
| a corner-stone of America...
|
| There are opportunists everywhere. I'm sure not everyone
| coming from our southern border is going to be someone I
| want in my neighborhood but that doesn't mean so many
| people aren't just looking for an escape from danger.
| Would you break a law to save your own life? To protect
| your family? Is penalizing people in these circumstances
| truly just? Does it make you a good person?
| AvocadoPanic wrote:
| I was thinking of Germans from the Palatinate...
|
| The Irish and Italians often had the full weight of law
| enforcement countering their illegal activities. There
| was also lots of social pressure to assimilate.
|
| It's hard to say, we'd need to do a deep dive on each.
| Pretty sure thats not happening. Absent that, yes I'm
| happy to exclude them.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| The Irish _became_ law enforcement, unflattering
| nicknames for the Black Maria notwithstanding
| Longlius wrote:
| It has one of the highest of the developed countries and has
| only recently declined. South Korea and Japan have had
| terminal birth rates since the 80s.
| dnndev wrote:
| What about married couples that decide not to have children ?
| The truth is it's hard, and if the community does not support
| families then you have less children. Think about both parents
| working full time + and barely having enough to provide from a
| material standpoint, let along emotional and education.
|
| Point is parenting is hard and life today makes it harder. I
| don't believe wedlock is a deciding reason for people having
| children.
| AvocadoPanic wrote:
| We rearranged our life from DINK to SIWK for this reason.
|
| If I'm paying for childcare the expenses often increase
| linearly with the number of children, with my wife caring for
| our children we were able to double the number of children
| while substantially reducing costs.
|
| We are no longer jetting to Alps for skiing, and we've not
| had a night out without the kids in 9 years but we've
| different priorities now.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I think this is a reasonable course of action, of course,
| but also respect the DINKs who look at having kids and go
| "no thanks" and continue jetting off to the Alps, Turks and
| Caicos, or whatever. Having kids is an opportunity cost,
| and there's a lot of life enjoyment to be had if you don't
| have them.
|
| Kids were previously an asset a century ago, now they're a
| luxury good.
| AvocadoPanic wrote:
| Sure r/childfree has lots of this sort. They often seem a
| bit too into being childfree to me, I probably wouldn't
| like their shitty kids anyway.
|
| There's an opportunity cost for most life decisions.
| Sometimes they're obscured. It's often not presented this
| way but for a cohort of women university and work,
| displaces marriage and children.
| iratewizard wrote:
| Children born from Reddit addicts are the over-socialized
| version of crack babies.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| filoleg wrote:
| Imo r/childfree to normal people who just don't want to
| have kids is like r/atheism to normal people who just
| happen to not be religious. Both subs are absolutely
| insufferable, even to many of those who align with them
| on the core premise.
|
| It feels like a lot of users there, instead of replacing
| all that time/effort/money spending (that comes with
| having kids) with a bunch of fun/useful/exciting things
| to do in life, they end up replacing it with "not having
| kids is my personality and the ultimate activity".
|
| I agree with the core premise of both (not religious,
| don't want to ever have kids), but i ended up completely
| filtering out both subreddits. Even opening a random post
| from those subs on r/all is like stepping into some
| children- and parent-hating alternate reality cesspool,
| where their choice is the only "obvious" choice, and
| everyone else is "brainwashed" or an idiot.
| kixiQu wrote:
| College-educated women are more likely to marry.
| https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-
| memos/2016/08...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| And yet they don't date down, so they can't find partners
| (as there is not an equal amount of educated, high
| earning, high status males).
|
| https://theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/10/dating-
| gap-...
|
| https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-gender-gap-in-marriages-
| betwe...
|
| https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/04/01/business/college-
| gend...
|
| ("College educated gender gap" are the search keywords
| for more info on the topic)
| kixiQu wrote:
| This is what anecdotally _feels_ true to people but isn
| 't what the data suggest:
|
| https://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2013/article/marriage-and-
| divor...
|
| Even in the Guardian piece you're linking there:
|
| > To me, looking at the demographic data, it doesn't seem
| that there is a widespread aversion to forming serious
| relationships [across educational lines] - there are more
| and more relationships in which women have more education
| than their male partners."
|
| > She doesn't see large numbers of educated women holding
| out for an educated partner, and remaining unhappily
| single, in other words.
|
| In the Pew piece linked from there,
|
| > The primary reason for the decline in the share of
| married couples with similar education levels is that
| marriages between spouses with high school or less than
| high school education are much less common these days --
| the share is down from 74% of all marriages in 1960 to
| 24% in 2012. In addition, adults with high school or less
| education are much less likely to marry. The marriage
| rate among this group plummeted --from 72% in 1960 to 46%
| in 2012.
|
| > Just the opposite has occurred among college graduates.
| The share of couples in which both spouses have a college
| degree has risen steadily in recent decades. In 1960,
| only 3% of couples were in this group, the share rose to
| 22% in 2012.
|
| Framing a decrease in marriage as "for a cohort of women
| university and work, displaces marriage and children",
| what I was responding to, is simply not supported by the
| data. The decrease in overall marriage is
| disproportionately due to the non-college-educated.
| Getting a university degree increases a woman's
| likelihood of marriage.
| dnndev wrote:
| That is great. I am glad that you were able to make this
| change! It was not until we had our own children that I
| truly understood (or maybe appreciated) when my mom would
| say "After all I have done for you" OR "Thats why we can
| never have anything nice"... HAHAH. I love it. totally
| relate now.
|
| On a serious side note. I think many (including us) highly
| underestimate how much time children require.
| igetspam wrote:
| Having come from a large family, I never realized that
| people didn't understand just how much work kids are.
| It's relentless. My wife is regularly astonished. I'm
| lucky to have been able to stop at one. I would have
| preferred married but childless but I'll take married to
| her over any other option, so I compromised. At with just
| one, we aren't spread so thin.
| Nimitz14 wrote:
| Older kids can help raising the others, I think having
| just one is where you do the maximum amount of work, also
| because with the later ones you are more experienced.
| AvocadoPanic wrote:
| You also miss the economies to be had with reuse. Much
| happier buying many things knowing all four are going to
| get use.
|
| Everyone gets there own new underwear.
|
| Also after the collapse of civilization, the labor of the
| children will be especially helpful. :)
| AvocadoPanic wrote:
| I was an only child. My wife has a brother. We felt it
| was important for our children to have siblings to have
| the opportunity for sibling relationships in adulthood.
| dnndev wrote:
| That all depends on the relationship between the
| siblings. I have 6 siblings and because of life choices
| we rarely keep in touch. My spouse is in the exact
| situation.
|
| Why? Is it possible our busy schedules, ability to
| relocate, and less dependency on each other are reasons
| why this may not be as important as it was at one time?
| AvocadoPanic wrote:
| Yes, I can see that, also you're not dead yet, you may
| still reshape those relationships.
|
| Also you may not have experienced the adversity necessary
| to forment the desire for a fuller sibling relationship.
| jaclaz wrote:
| It is news to me that Italy "enforces" traditional values.
|
| Possibly there is still is in some (few) very religious
| circles/groups some stigmatizing of the breaking of marriage,
| but that's all.
|
| Otherwise we have divorce (since 1970) and also (only more
| recently, 2016) a number of legal provisions for unmarried
| couples (that give to the partners some rights under the Law),
| called "unione civile" (civil union) that is open to both
| hetero and same sex partners.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| > Over the past half-century, the number of men per capita behind
| bars has more than quadrupled.
|
| This then talks about poor people dating too much/families being
| unstable... as if the instability isn't put on the poor by
| overpolicing. Is this more blaming poor people for their poverty?
| pyuser583 wrote:
| My parents grew up in white, working class neighborhoods in the
| 1950s.
|
| The families were extremely unstable. There was stigma to
| straight up divorce, and lots of "everything is fine" when it
| wasn't.
|
| Both parents were raised by grandparents, aunts/uncles, etc.
|
| They turned out very well.
|
| I guess that reinforces the authors point.
|
| When marriage isn't about individual fulfillment, but supporting
| the community, you get unhappy marriages but stronger
| communities.
| torginus wrote:
| Sorry, for going a bit of topic, but I perked up my ears at this
| sentence:
|
| >For example, there are many studies on identical twins separated
| at birth who are adopted by different families.
|
| How the hell are there 'many' studies on this? I'd think this
| _Prince and the Pauper_ scenario would be so fantastic, that
| there 'd be no more than a dozen cases, owing to the extreme
| rarity of circumstances which all need to happen for this
| sensational scenario to come about.
|
| Or do psychiatrists make sure somehow that identical twins in
| orphanages are adopted with people from different socioeconomic
| strata?
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| Looks like there have been almost 2000 pairs of such twins.
|
| https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/05/twin-epi...
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| This article is failing to see a fundamental distinction in
| spousal relations between "now" (present era) and "then"
| (pre-1970s): economic dependency between women and men.
|
| On the whole, if you mothered children in the pre-feminist era,
| and you didn't have a spouse... you and your children could
| starve. Because there was very little space carved out in our
| society for women to work. And under the cover of that asymmetry
| of power men got away with all sorts of abuses.
|
| Yes, the family may have stuck together. And there was a defined
| and potentially socially responsible role for men in this
| context: provider and economic glue and source of authority for
| the family. But at what cost? Spousal and child abuse rates were
| sky high, though they may not have even been perceived as such at
| the time. They were just part of the normal authoritarian
| structure of the family.
|
| Have young men suffered from the changes that have come along
| with women obtaining additional powers and the bonds of the
| nuclear family becoming less strong? Quite possibly. But we also
| have to accept that what was holding that together was also
| potentially toxic.
|
| Put another way: In general -- over the last 200 years --
| capitalist market relations have severed many traditional bonds
| and obligations. The _primary_ obligation of an adult individual,
| in our liberal capitalist society, is as a wage labourer, an
| economic contributor. On the whole people "are" what they "do"
| (for $$).
|
| The family structure has always been a mix of authoritarian bonds
| and genuine warmth, material obligations, etc. I think we're
| still figuring out what its new form will be. It may be that in
| our neo-liberal hyper-capitalist present society that there are
| contradictions here we cannot resolve.
|
| Marx/Engels thought so, anyways, check out this paragraph from
| the Communist Manifesto:
|
| _" On what foundation is the present family, the bourgeois
| family, based? On capital, on private gain. In its completely
| developed form, this family exists only among the bourgeoisie.
| But this state of things finds its complement in the practical
| absence of the family among the proletarians, and in public
| prostitution. "_
| VictorPath wrote:
| Yes. The past half century has been devoted to exploiting the
| working class breadwinner and family the benefit of the idle
| class. Now that the working class breadwinner and family has
| been improvished and ground down, what is the solution? For the
| upper classes to hold working class breadwinner and family to
| account, to become more judgemental of them etc.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Yep, but it's never not been like that. Go back and read what
| the Victorian aristocracy and bourgeoisie had to say about
| the English working classes. In general blaming their poverty
| on their moral failings, and going on about prostitution and
| sexual behaviours, etc.
| hans1729 wrote:
| Semantics; social nurture is embedded into Maslow pyramid, not
| the other way around. The issue with poverty and lack of social
| security doesn't arise from a lack of expectations if the lack of
| expectations, at its core, arises from poverty and lacking social
| security.
|
| I'm not disagreeing with the notion that people want to appear
| progressive and thus don't want to discourage "new family
| models", of course they do, but that's a symptom of identity
| politics, which are a direct result of the absence of culture,
| which, imo, is a direct consequence of Maslow pyramid.
|
| Fix social stability, then we can afford to talk about fixing
| culture.
| steve76 wrote:
| AviationAtom wrote:
| I teach many folks that have just left high school, and entered
| the military. Their being content with doing pretty much nothing
| shocks me. Seeing the military enabling the behavior, even more
| so. All because recruiting is so hard right now. Many of the
| recruits do join the military because they have exhausted other
| options. It's sad to see how productive society once was, versus
| where we are now. It legitimately makes me nervous about what the
| future might hold.
| deebosong wrote:
| I'm not that young, but not old enough to have witnessed
| generational patterns of young men shifting as a cultural
| phenom.
|
| That being said, what do you feel is the cause of a drain in
| motivation on the endemic level? For some reason my gut
| reaction is to think that it's the outsourcing of jobs to other
| countries, and wages stagnating while prices go up. And then
| couple that with social media, of the life we're all told we're
| supposed to live, and now young men have less opportunities,
| less income with higher prices, and having a false idealization
| of "the good life" shoved down their throats.
|
| I don't need to insist what I'm thinking is correct, but that's
| just what I'm kinda seeing in broad strokes. Could be way off.
| I also don't know if there's a version of this in every
| generation, or if in fact the current generation is a new/
| fringe case that requires very different approaches for how to
| address it on a macro & interrelated scale.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| These young men aren't getting weekly messages of hope like
| >80% were 60 years ago. Those that are are more likely
| flourishing according to all the pew research.
| Multicomp wrote:
| If by weekly messages of hope you mean going to church
| regularly on Sundays*, that's an interesting point I hadn't
| considered in this context before.
|
| Can you provide a citation for the pew research on the
| weekly messages of hope, whether my above inference was
| correct or not? If it's not Sunday services at church, I'd
| love to know what else I can do inject some hope into my
| weeks.
|
| * or whatever is the holy day in a given church
| congregation.
| AviationAtom wrote:
| I think you assumed they meant faith, when it really
| could just be influences. You are a product of your
| surroundings, and if your existence is tied to the
| Internet then those surroundings can include many
| negative things. The Internet has great power in the
| right hands, but it can also be dangerous in the wrong
| hands.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Yes, alluding to attending community focused
| thanksgiving. Root word of 'Eucharist' means to give
| thanks, for example.
|
| Here is one example: https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-
| content/uploads/sites/11/2...
|
| It begins:
|
| "A new Pew Research Center study of the ways religion
| influences the daily lives of Americans finds that people
| who are highly religious are more engaged with their
| extended families, more likely to volunteer, more
| involved in their communities and generally happier with
| the way things are going in their lives."
| AviationAtom wrote:
| I can't definitively say, but I think the Internet and gaming
| culture has changed much, and it seems to be the only thing
| some of the people I am educating seem to really care for, or
| get excited about.
|
| It used to be that you had a limited set of people
| controlling the messaging that went into your mind, often
| limiting negative messages for the majority of people. The
| Internet has made it far too easy to stumble upon, or seek
| out, negative messaging. I could definitely see where if you
| have been conditioned to feel that you don't need to try, or
| shouldn't even try, then you will believe a life without
| accomplishment is acceptable and sustainable.
|
| They used to say that the apple doesn't fall far from the
| tree, but now that tree is a forest. If you are a parent, a
| mentor, or similar, you are competing for airtime with
| billions of other voices on the Internet. You really have to
| make sure your voice stands out amongst the rest. I try to
| offer that in my classroom, but I only get them for a short
| period, then they're onward to their next training in the
| pipeline.
| fullshark wrote:
| > That being said, what do you feel is the cause of a drain
| in motivation on the endemic level?
|
| It's a natural reaction to the fact that opportunities are
| shrinking in terms of quality and payoff. There are lots of
| "jobs" but they don't offer long term stability or growth.
| AviationAtom wrote:
| On the flipside, most employees don't feel tied to an
| employer, even if the employer treats them well. Often many
| folks are chasing higher pay. I know in the cybersecurity
| realm quite a few folks are job hoppers, and right now
| employers are all to anxious to try to pick off talent from
| competitors. One of my former co-workers is now at their
| fifth job in five years, and each time they were chasing a
| higher paycheck. In my field they don't seek a pay raise at
| their current employer, they get it in writing on an offer
| from a recruiter at their next employer.
| fullshark wrote:
| Blaming employers doesn't make sense, both sides are just
| responding to incentives. The labor regulations and
| macroeconomic choices our gov't have made are responsible
| imo, they've optimized for the wrong or incomplete
| metrics (Three biggest are GDP / unemployment % / stock
| market returns).
| AlexandrB wrote:
| This didn't happen overnight. When I was in my early
| teens in the 90s I already had a sense, from listening to
| the news, that employers were out for their own self-
| interest first and foremost. Massive layoffs, shrinking
| benefits, and the concept of public companies being
| primarily responsible to their shareholders all send the
| same message: "At the end of the day, you are disposable.
| Loyalty will not be reciprocated."
|
| As an employee, it would be irrational to ignore this and
| hope that loyalty would be rewarded.
| AviationAtom wrote:
| But isn't it doomed to be a self fulfilling prophecy if
| you approach every new company with these beliefs?
|
| Google is a great example of one that started out very
| differently, but unfortunately became much like the
| companies they strived to set themselves apart from. Many
| startups still foster that culture Google originally had.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| And good for them- if they are happy with that. If young men do
| what they like, I'm happy with that. If young women do same, I'm
| equally happy. Why should anyone expect anything from someone
| else? I expect things only from myself.
| SubiculumCode wrote:
| Male culture in the West is certainly undergoing dissolution, but
| the moral of the story is not to go backwards; there were plenty
| of evils in that culture to want to aspire back to the
| patriarchical order. Instead, we need to find a new path forward
| to instill seriousness of purpose and will back into male culture
| who's drives for competition and sex are 90% satisfied by video
| games and porhub.
| RickJWagner wrote:
| Many things to agree with in this article.
|
| I wish social programs could help address these.
| z3t4 wrote:
| > men will do whatever is required in order to obtain sex
|
| I wish there was some kind of pill without much side effects,
| that made you asexual. Then men could focus on science and other
| interests.
|
| For Example Sir Isaac Newton's self proclaimed greatest
| achievement was his lifelong celibacy.
|
| I wonder how sexual selection affects humans overall
| intelligence... Have human intelligence gone up in the last
| 200-20000 years or is it the amount of free time that is
| responsible for the technological boom the last 200 years ? Or
| does technology advance exponentially ?
| poszlem wrote:
| Rob Henderson also coined the term "luxury beliefs" which is one
| of the most apt name for something we've been witnessing lately
| ("defund the police" or "healthy at every size" or "marriage is
| just an oppressive institution of the patriarchy"). I highly
| recommend that other essay too
| https://nypost.com/2019/08/17/luxury-beliefs-are-the-latest-...
| empathy_m wrote:
| Is "you can have a two parent household with two full time
| jobs" also a luxury belief?
| camgunz wrote:
| "luxury beliefs" feels to me like the right found a way to say
| "privilege" without actually saying it, haha.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| This isn't the burn you intend. Henderson is talking about
| wealth/status privilege while the left uses "privilege" as a
| shorthand for racial or gender privilege. Henderson is
| clearly not ceding that point here (implicitly or otherwise).
| camgunz wrote:
| I don't think the left thinks of privilege solely as racial
| or gender privilege. Here's an article on
| "everydayfeminism.com" about the broad view progressives
| take on it: https://everydayfeminism.com/2014/05/income-vs-
| wealth/
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I disagree from extensive experience. Unadorned,
| "privilege" refers to some identity privilege 99% of the
| time. For example, "check your privilege" virtually
| always refers to some identity privilege.
|
| Moreover, the salient point wasn't "the left doesn't
| believe in wealth privilege" as much as " _no one_
| disputes wealth privilege and thus Henderson isn't being
| hypocritical here as you imply".
| camgunz wrote:
| I think the left gets caricatured heavily by the right
| (there's a "both sides" counterargument here, but my view
| is that the right is very easy to caricature because it's
| mostly absurd, and my arguments are gay marriage, gun
| laws, climate change, immigration, and fiscal/monetary
| policy) into an image of a huge Twitter mob canceling
| people for saying the wrong words and miscounting the
| number of genders. I'm very unsympathetic to people
| coming from this view of the left; it feels lazy and
| motivated entirely by insecurity and animus. Even if it's
| true, compared with the problems caused by Republican
| policies (Iraq/Afghanistan wars, gutting of regulatory
| state and scientific research leading to opioid crisis,
| deregulation, tax cuts, attacks on unions leading to the
| total collapse of the middle class, active lobbying
| against climate science leading to... Armageddon?) it
| carries no weight.
|
| Or TLDR, yeah sometimes we get carried away on Twitter.
| But at least we're not roasting the planet.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I agree that the right has a lot of problems and I
| disagree with them on most issues. I even agree that the
| problems on the right are worse than those on the left in
| a certain sense. I also agree that the right-wing view of
| the left is a caricature like you describe, but I think
| that caricature is rooted in some truth. For example,
| while there are other concerns on the left, identity has
| become a _hugely_ popular issue on the American left in
| the last decade. To that end, it 's disingenuous to
| portray this as "a right-wing concern" when lots of
| liberals are concerned about it as well. Moreover, many
| people (myself included) think that this identity
| politics stuff is tearing at our social fabric, not only
| by fostering racial divides, but also because Americans
| of all stripes are losing trust in institutions which
| have increasingly rejected aspirational neutrality and
| objectivity in favor of progressive activism. I don't
| know how to compare this to certain Republican policies
| which are more immediately damaging.
|
| > Even if it's true, compared with the problems caused by
| Republican policies (Iraq/Afghanistan wars, gutting of
| regulatory state and scientific research leading to
| opioid crisis, deregulation, tax cuts, attacks on unions
| leading to the total collapse of the middle class, active
| lobbying against climate science leading to...
| Armageddon?) it carries no weight.
|
| I have plenty of bad things to say about Republican
| policies, but the Iraq/Afghan wars were bipartisan and I
| don't think deregulation is a clear and universal evil
| nor are unions an unmitigated good. Agreed that climate
| inaction is prevalent among Republicans, but I consider
| Democrats' empty words and gestures (as they pertain to
| climate) to be just another kind of inaction. Democrats
| will get bragging rights when they rally around a serious
| climate pricing policy--if you believe (as I do) that the
| world is really burning, why don't Democrats offer a
| budget proposal which reflects that? Why don't they rally
| around any of the annually-proposed carbon pricing bills?
| Why did they allow themselves to be completely and wholly
| fixated on an obviously fake crisis of racist police
| killings for the better part of the last decade? Why do
| we allocate so much of our national debate bandwidth to
| pronouns and bathroom policies if we believe we're
| veering toward mass extinction?
|
| That said, I think it's super destructive to use
| Republican behavior (or in many cases, a caricature
| thereof) to excuse every criticism of Democratic
| behavior. That's a recipe for racing to the bottom IMO.
| Instead of responding to "Democrats aren't taking climate
| seriously enough" with "well, Republicans are worse ergo
| Democrat climate inaction is fine" it would be great if
| we could focus on ways to improve Democratic climate
| policy.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I don't think the left thinks of privilege solely as
| racial or gender privilege.
|
| The left doesn't thing of privilege as even _primarily_
| racial or gender privilege. (The people that do are
| centrists; the actual left centers _class_ privilege,
| though there are leftists who see race /gender issues as
| important secondary/connected issues to class issues.)
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| You have it exactly backwards. Centrists center class
| privilege while leftists center race/gender/etc
| privilege. For example, when discussing racial
| inequality, leftists will tend to argue "disparity thus
| discrimination" while centrists (and moderates of all
| stripes, really) will argue that the mechanism is
| classist but it manifests as a disparity because the
| class distributions aren't uniform across races.
|
| I certainly agree that _historically_ leftists were very
| concerned about class, but that hasn't been the popular
| analysis among American leftists for a decade.
| camgunz wrote:
| Eh, I think he's right. On the ground, the "centrists"
| are mostly the Clinton/Obama wing of the party who are
| very fluent in identity issues and the "leftists" are
| mostly the Sanders wing of the party who are more focused
| on economics.
|
| Maybe ironically, as one of them I wouldn't say
| "centrists" center anything. We tend to see the whole
| thing as a milieu. Not that economic issues aren't super
| important, but there's no serious way to analyze the US
| without taking both economic _and_ identity issues into
| account.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Agreed that centrists (or more precisely, "moderate
| Democrats") are more aligned to Clinton/Obama wing, but
| the idea that Clinton/Obama are the identitarians rather
| than the progressive wing (Warren, AOC, Pressley, Tlaib,
| Omar, etc) is beyond belief. Clinton and Obama might've
| capitalized on their identities in pandering to the
| progressive wing, but that's the point: the identity
| stuff is coming from the far left side of the party which
| is absolutely breathless about identity stuff (Sanders
| here is the exception to the rule). On more than one
| occasion, Obama explicitly cautioned _against_ left wing
| identity extremism while "The Squad" cheerleaded the BLM
| riots. Do you think Warren, AOC, Omar, etc are really
| "moderate Democrats" or do you disagree that they are
| committed identitarians?
| kodah wrote:
| Just an FYI, you and the person that's responding to you
| are talking about the same people but use two different
| words for them. A real leftist ideological group doesn't
| exist in the US; progressives are not that for certain.
| To the right, however, a leftist is a US progressive.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| Progressives and leftists are approximately the same
| thing in US politics, not just among the right (the
| American right doesn't even distinguish between liberals
| and progressives--it just calls everyone left of center
| "liberals").
| kodah wrote:
| Not at all; talk to any global leftist and they'll tell
| you US progressive policy and values don't match up with
| theirs at all.
|
| Anecdotally, I've known these kinds of folks for a while
| through FOSS and IRC. I'm also dating an _actual_
| leftist.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| You're observing that political labels vary semantically
| between political systems. "liberal" in the UK has a
| different meaning than in the US. Similarly, "leftist"
| means something different in an American context than it
| does in your "global" context (although I suspect
| "global" here is really only accurate for Europe, but
| that's a debate for another day).
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > "liberal" in the UK has a different meaning than in the
| US.
|
| Liberal doesn't have any consistent meaning in the US.
| (Like, nearly every point on the spectrum uses it
| differently
|
| > Similarly, "leftist" means something different in an
| American context than it does in your "global" context
|
| Not particularly. Except in the propaganda of the
| American Right, where it is one of a pile of indistinct
| labels like Marxist, liberal, Communist, woke, critical
| race theory, etc., applied indiscriminately to everything
| they disagree with.
| kodah wrote:
| It's a word salad all around. Folks on the US left
| exhibit similar symptoms when talking about the right. I
| responded initially because I think distinctualizing US
| progressives and global progressives is important. I
| don't want to see US progressives, their policy, or their
| values gain more traction; I am on board for a party that
| reflects global progressivism, it's policies, and it's
| values.
|
| It does seem like there's a split on this thread about
|
| - whether the US progressives relate to global
| progressives in any way except by name
|
| - how the right views the political spectrum by name of
| everything to the left of it
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > It's a word salad all around.
|
| Exactly.
|
| > Folks on the US left exhibit similar symptoms when
| talking about the right.
|
| Yeah, for a good while there, everyone who wasn't a
| staunch progressive was described as uniformly "far-
| right".
|
| > I responded initially because I think distinctualizing
| US progressives and global progressives is important. I
| don't want to see US progressives, their policy, or their
| values gain more traction; I am on board for a party that
| reflects global progressivism, it's policies, and it's
| values.
|
| I disagree with your politics, but I agree on the
| importance of this distinction.
|
| > whether the US progressives relate to global
| progressives in any way except by name
|
| I think US progressives are roughly "global progressives"
| plus identity stuff. Some US progressives care more about
| identity than economics, but there aren't any US
| progressives who flat-out reject left-wing economics even
| if they don't care as much about it, and there are
| relatively few US progressives who flat-out reject left-
| wing identity doctrine even if they don't think it's
| terribly important (e.g., Sanders).
|
| > how the right views the political spectrum by name of
| everything to the left of it
|
| The right generally doesn't distinguish between different
| "bands" (in the sense of a frequency band in a frequency
| spectrum) on the left of the spectrum any more than the
| left distinguishes between different "bands" on the right
| of the spectrum. Some right-wingers use "leftist" for
| everyone left of center and others use "liberal" for
| left-of-center, but in both cases they're using a single
| term for "left-of-center" and thus failing to
| distinguish. You see the same thing with people on the
| left referring to the right homogeneously as
| "conservative" or "right-wing" or "far-right". Few on
| either side recognize the nuanced beliefs on the other
| side.
| kodah wrote:
| imo, being so caught up in identity is what makes US
| progressives so toxic. Once you go deep into identity it
| becomes an abstraction that replaces the root cause,
| which is class distinctions. Identity is useful in
| solving specific problems, like systemic racism, but US
| progressives are practically blind to class problems
| which makes them especially problematic when they can't
| recognize how rural areas have class overlaps and
| alienate those constituents and problems. Hence, US
| progressives are so volatile and wildly different from
| the global landscape. Whether or not you believe the
| basis of global progressivism starts with class
| distinctions or not and how the US perspective based on
| identity erodes that is likely where we differ. I'll
| admit that my bias doesn't favor US progressives because
| I belong to an identity that's frequently ignored, if not
| mocked in various ways, by progressives (I'm a vet) and
| there's little in the way of a future reckoning for that.
|
| I agree with the last paragraph. Anyone that does not
| understand the various striations of politics but
| attempts to speak on broad groups negatively without that
| understanding does immeasurable damage to discourse.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| > Whether or not you believe the basis of global
| progressivism starts with class distinctions or not and
| how the US perspective based on identity erodes that is
| likely where we differ.
|
| I think we agree here. Most "progressives" outside of the
| US are a lot more likely to focus on class distinctions
| while US progressives are preoccupied by identity.
| [deleted]
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > A real leftist ideological group doesn't exist in the
| US
|
| Yes, it does.
|
| Because of the electoral system's strong pressure to
| duopoly, there isn't a substantial real leftist _party_
| in the US, but there is a real leftist ideological group.
|
| > progressives are not that for certain
|
| US progressives overlap with, but are not the same as,
| the left.
|
| > To the right, however, a leftist is a US progressive.
|
| To the American Right, a leftist is a Democrat, including
| a center -right neoliberal corporate capitalist democrat.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| This is basically correct, apart from the "center-right
| neoliberal corporate capitalist" babble. :)
| [deleted]
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I find his overall argument that it is "trickle down values"
| that are responsible for many of the overall social ills of the
| poor extremely lacking in evidence, and if anything I think
| he's confused cause and effect.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Totally agree. I don't understand what the mechanism of
| values "trickling down" is meant to be. In my experience,
| none of the people "downstream" care or are even at all aware
| of what the "upstream" elites think. Like, is the claim
| really that the deadbeat dad in his 30s mentioned in the OP
| got his values from an academic seminar on family formation?
| It's incoherent...
| gilmore606 wrote:
| The people downstream watch hours of TV shows and internet
| media every day, most of which is created by people with
| elite-aspirational values. They also receive the clear
| message that these values are elite values. This is how
| values trickle down.
| lesam wrote:
| Especially since the argument seems to be that 'elites'
| actually live by one set of (good) values while somehow
| imposing 'bad' values or expectations on the lower classes.
| How exactly are these bad values communicated from the elites
| if they don't live by them? How do the elites enforce the
| 'good' values among themselves without transmitting them to
| lower classes?
|
| I agree there is doublespeak about values among some elites,
| but I disagree that is the major source of single parent
| families.
| politician wrote:
| "Luxury beliefs" puts a name to a phenomenon that I've been
| wondering about. Like the availability of venture capital and
| calories, I strongly suspect there are many behaviors that will
| go away or retreat if the economy faltered. We're seeing
| interest rates rise, so I suppose that I'll get to see whether
| or not this is the case.
| mediumiqsad wrote:
| Rob went to Yale.
|
| He's literally a luxury columnist.
| dilap wrote:
| Right. He's someone that went from low to high class; he's
| writing about high-class beliefs from the perspective of
| someone who has first-hand knowledge of how they play out for
| the lower-classes.
| est31 wrote:
| He went to Yale, yes, but he doesn't have the typical Yale
| graduate background of wealth and status. He had a drug
| addict mother and was sent to foster homes until he was
| adopted. He experienced the various levels of society first-
| hand.
| walkhour wrote:
| > Of my five closest friends in high school, none went to
| college. Two went to prison.
|
| Agreed, couldn't be further away from your typical Yale
| graduate.
| dang wrote:
| " _When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of
| calling names._ "
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
|
| You may not owe luxury columnists better, but you owe this
| community better if you're participating in it.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| What the heck? He did reply to the argument. He didn't call
| anyone in the community names, and the beliefs and position
| held by the author absolutely DO matter in this context.
|
| Dang you need to really revaluate your decisions on when to
| post or call people out for "rule violations".
| dang wrote:
| I don't see any reference to beliefs or positions in the
| GP comment, nor replies to arguments. "Luxury columnist"
| is obviously being used as a dismissive label in this
| thread. If you toss in "Yale" as more or less a bad word,
| then the entire comment reduces to name-calling. This was
| not a borderline moderation call.
|
| (Btw the guideline against calling names isn't limited to
| people in the community.)
| dijit wrote:
| Where did this idea come from that we cannot see what exists
| outside of ourselves and our experiences?
|
| I can empathise with people who are nothing like me. I can
| understand silly things that people like me do, and how they
| must look to people who are not like me.
|
| It is only infant humans that can't understand that anything
| exists outside of themselves.
|
| Are we all infants?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Psychologists recognize that a surprisingly large
| percentage of people have no little to no ability to
| visualize abstractions or engage in mentally taxing feats
| of empathy.
|
| These people are more prone to believe that it's only
| possible to obtain insight about a circumstance from only
| those individuals in said circumstance.
|
| When people comment about this, it generates confusion for
| people like you. :)
| Cederfjard wrote:
| What do I search for if I want to read up on that
| research?
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Here could be an interesting starting point:
| https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/726844v1.full.pdf
| flatearth22 wrote:
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| I'd like to chime in on one very narrow issue that's a
| personal axe.
|
| I'd appreciate your consideration.
|
| Due to some widely shared youtube videos and other new and
| zeitgeisty trends, empathy has been put on a pedestal and
| sympathy and been thoroughly denigrated.
|
| The problem is that people are not that capable of real
| empathy in complex or strongly divergent experiences, this
| modern "synthetic empathy" generated in peoples
| imaginations is actively harmful, is not empathy, and is
| worse than sympathy (which was always a serviceable emotion
| and the most accurate framing for many circumstances.)
|
| As someone born with a heart defect that almost killed them
| and forced me into formative and constant meditation on
| death starting at 4 years old, and then had my parents die
| young and my family financially ruined by medical bills so
| I had to quit highschool and start working fulltime I have
| personally observed that empathy as a mental model has a
| strong failure mode.
|
| I doubt at 15 you could have had empathy for me, (unless
| you shared a similar experience) I doubt older wiser you
| could still empathize with 15 year old me in any meaningful
| way, certainly no peer I ever met at the time could (agqin,
| unless they had dealt with the same.)
|
| I think peoples ability to empathize has been far oversold,
| so while you can understand and empathize with "silly
| things", outside of that I'd settle for some good old
| fashioned (and real) sympathy.
|
| Sympathy has a certain acknowledgment of lack of
| understanding and thus intellectual and emotional humility,
| and I think humility is what is missing in this modern
| synthetic empathy.
|
| Experiences in general and certainly extremely divergent
| ones do not have the same qualia and empathy is a false
| siren.
|
| People don't understand as much as they think, they should
| show sympathy to those whose experiences are far outside
| their own and help them tangibly when possible.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| pydry wrote:
| Defund the police blew up because certain communities' _only_
| experience of police is of being harassed, beaten and robbed.
|
| It's hardly an attitude that's dripping with privilege.
|
| The backlash, on the other hand...
| nikanj wrote:
| Counterpoint: it's easy to support abolishing the police,
| when a clogged milk foamer is the biggest threat to your
| personal safety. Live in a wonderful sheltered community, say
| "I don't see why we would need law enforcement"
| HomeGear wrote:
| "Defund the Police" was not an attempt at abolishing
| police. However, I do understand there are outlets that
| positioned it as such to gain emotional investment. The
| idea was to reallocate some of the police budget to mental
| health experts. The idea behind that idea is that we'd had
| better outcomes if mental health experts helped those
| having a breakdown (suicide attempt, etc) than armed
| police.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| While it is true that there are people who actually do
| propose completely defunding police activity or abolishing
| the police, they are a tiny minority of those who took part
| in protests about police behavior towards non-white
| communities.
|
| It's so easy to make cheap digs about that handful of
| people instead of actually tackle the issues that this
| misnamed movement was/is really about.
|
| If it had actually been called "Redirect substantive parts
| of the funding currently going to the police to provide
| alternate mechanisms to address a variety of situations and
| crises", would you still find it appropriate to make jabs
| about the situation of some of those who supported it?
| josephg wrote:
| I hear what you're saying, but words matter. I can never
| support a slogan I explicitly disagree with.
|
| There's plenty of better slogans out there. I'd support
| "end police violence" or "stop killer cops" or something.
|
| Thats certainly much more catchy than the full slogan
| right now, which seems to be "Defund the police, but we
| don't really want to do that, even though some people in
| our movement actually do want that, but they're a
| minority - we swear. But we want political power anyway
| and it'll be fine - you can trust us".
|
| You can tell its a bad slogan because of how much oxygen
| gets spent explaining it. (Eg, right here)
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| This sounds very much like the critiques I heard of
| "black lives matter". Wait, are you saying white lives
| don't matter?
|
| Where do these slogans come from? Are they designed by
| conservatives to make liberals look bad?
| josephg wrote:
| "Black lives matter" is a much more defensible slogan,
| because if you believe all human life matters, you should
| also support the idea that black lives matter.
|
| "Defund the police" is much worse because it's explicitly
| naming and promoting a policy idea which activists
| promise they don't actually want.
|
| Why lie about what you want?
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| "End Police Violence" has been a slogan in fact. It
| didn't really do much, precisely because not enough
| people who consider themselves unaffected by the risk of
| police violence were drawn in by it.
|
| By contrast "Defund the Police" definitely generated a
| "say what?" response from just about everyone, whether
| you agreed with it or not.
|
| As for the political power thing ... given the difficulty
| that existing politicians and political bodies have in
| exerting control over police authority, the idea that any
| new group would somehow be able to actually accomplish
| anything remotely close to abolition is crazy. Look at
| what happened in Minneapolis as an illustrative example:
| probably the closest to "actual abolition", and it just
| fizzled out completely.
| sokoloff wrote:
| What you heard as a "say what?" was a politely phrased
| "you guys haven't thought this through" in a lot of
| cases.
|
| "Think different", "Think outside the bun", "Just Do It"
| are good "say what?" examples. I don't think "Defund the
| Police" accomplished the goal to make curious and enlist
| fence-sitters to the cause and instead likely pushed more
| people towards supporting their police departments.
| defterGoose wrote:
| Intent and good-faith argument also matter. If you're not
| willing to look past another person's inexpert use of
| grammar and/or syntax in order to understand their
| meaning, then you're doing it wrong. No trophies for
| elevating language to be a rigid and immutable thing.
| spangry wrote:
| From a purely practical perspective, if you're trying to
| convey an idea the onus is kinda on you to communicate it
| clearly. If the literal meaning of what you're saying
| ('defund the police') is not actually what you're trying
| to convey, it seems unproductive to accuse people of
| acting in 'bad faith' when they understandably
| misunderstand. It's like designing something badly and
| then blaming your users for 'not using it right'.
| defterGoose wrote:
| Sure, I absolutely take your point and as a lover of
| language generally feel similar leanings. But by the same
| token, everyone seems to be everyone else's audience
| these days, so there must be some reciprocal onus on an
| audience member to realize that a person calling to
| "defund the police" in Minneapolis might not agree with
| the statement "law enforcement is universally bad".
| josephg wrote:
| If someone says "vote for me, I want to defund the
| police", I'm not sure what to believe. Do they support a
| terrible policy (defunding the police)? Or are they
| lying? If they actually get in to power and actually do
| defund the local police, I don't think we get to complain
| about the outcome.
|
| It might be an ASD trait, but I really like to take
| people at their word. Please speak what you actually
| think. I have a hard time trusting people who say one
| thing but believe another. Especially in politics.
| Taywee wrote:
| > If it had actually been called "Redirect substantive
| parts of the funding currently going to the police to
| provide alternate mechanisms to address a variety of
| situations and crises", would you still find it
| appropriate to make jabs about the situation of some of
| those who supported it?
|
| No, because that's a rational and reasonable statement,
| where "defund the police" grabs attention, but is
| ultimately divisive and alienating. Like so many popular
| talking points, it's a complete failure of marketing and
| communication, and everybody who says it ends up having
| to redefine or explain it on a constant basis because on
| the surface it sounds completely irrational.
|
| Maybe it could have been more successful if the name
| actually reflected the goal. As-is, the supporters either
| actually believe in abolishing the police (which was also
| called for), or they are saying something they don't
| actually mean in a literal sense because it grabs more
| attention. The detractors in turn are only arguing with
| what a minority of the supporters actually even want,
| because we've grown so unconcerned as a society with
| actually conveying our points and getting people on our
| side, and more concerned with simply being noticed.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Ah, "latte-sipping liberal."
|
| edit: There's something correct here, because if you want
| to look for people who supported defund, they were probably
| working in food service, making you coffee.
| seibelj wrote:
| Gallop: 81% of black Americans want police to spend same
| amount or more time in their area
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/316571/black-americans-
| police-r...
|
| Defund the police is popular with nobody except rich liberals
| living in privilege bubbles. People in crime ridden areas
| especially don't want it.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| Does that poll support your argument? Spending and funding
| isn't directly correlated with "spending time". Chicago
| spends almost two billion dollars each year on police. Yet
| it's often cited as one of the most dangerous cities. I'm
| sure plenty of folks in Chicago's South side would love
| more patrols. Is the right way to go about that really to
| keep throwing money at a system which appears to be
| squandering the funds? Especially when they spend tens (or
| some years, hundreds) of millions of dollars settling
| misconduct lawsuits?
| imajoredinecon wrote:
| The idea of "funding" is just a rough proxy for what
| people really want (or don't): more police presence.
| Garden-variety "defund the police" advocates think that,
| due to police violence, bias, and so on, the police
| should be a smaller part of how we address crime. The
| people in areas affected heavily by crime think that the
| police should be _more_ involved. That's the
| disagreement.
| cnelsenmilt wrote:
| But do they think the police should be more involved in
| exactly the same way they are now? I don't know, but I do
| assume that if asked they would suggest some changes in
| behavior: "police should be more involved but also they
| should stop with the X and do more of Y". Either way,
| that angle is certainly missing from the single question
| cited above.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| "Defund the police" is merely an agitational short slogan
| for "we need some other way of governing the safety of our
| communities, because this is clearly not working."
|
| Like many short and pithy slogans, it may not be
| communicating that message effectively at all.
|
| It's not like police forces are an eternal attribute of all
| civilizations. Modern policing is actually pretty young.
| ryan93 wrote:
| They are an attribute of 100% of modern countries.
| kasey_junk wrote:
| And it's a particularly bad short slogan because it says
| something a) no one really believes and b) something that
| is particularly unpopular. Defund the police sets back
| the very things it's trying to address.
|
| Contrast that to "Black Lives Matter" or "We are the 99%"
| which are also short slogans that encapsulate the broad
| and varied beliefs of the respective movements without
| being off putting to even the people who agree.
| FridgeSeal wrote:
| It's not a great slogan, sure, but it's got staying
| power, and enough people clearly understand (or are
| willing to listen to) what it actually means, so maybe we
| can all get on with enacting some change instead of bike
| shedding what would have maybe been a better pithy
| slogan.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Sure, I actually agree. But I'm also a) not American b)
| not black c) not an anarchist, nor a liberal [I'm a
| radical socialist by conviction, not a liberal]. So take
| following with that in mind:
|
| There are two separate things here, to be analyzed
| separately: slogan/demand vs . an actual proposed policy.
| I think it's a huge mistake to confuse the two.
|
| So I dunno, I don't walk around saying "that's the wrong
| demand", or "say something else, you don't want that."
| I'd rather understand where it's coming from and who is
| saying it, see?
|
| Slogans are tactical, part of a movement, and the
| activists involved do not have state power, they pretty
| much never will given the structure of the US state, and
| as I see it the purpose of the demand is to primarily to
| point out the injustices, contradictions, and limits of
| the existing system.
|
| In that respect "defund the police" is probably somewhat
| successful from the POV of the people who propagated it,
| who are mostly, from what I can deduce, anarchist
| movement types. (And yes, they probably actually do
| believe it. But I'm not an anarchist, so) They've made a
| broad swathe of the public see something that is frankly
| true from my POV and others: policing as we have it now
| has an awful history, and frankly its primary purpose in
| our western society is the routine maintenance of
| existing power structures and inequities, and in the US
| especially this takes a fundamentally racist form. It's
| getting increasingly hard to deny that, even for
| mainstream liberals and some conservatives.
|
| Is it universally true? No. No phenomenon in society
| works that way. But on the whole there's a structural
| aspect of policing that may not be reformable in our
| current society. I saw a poll the other day that a very
| large % of black Canadians (my country) trust the
| _government_ , but do not trust the _police_. I think
| that 's an interesting and powerful distinction:
| Especially in light of how police have behaved here at
| e.g. various anti-vaccine/anti-COVID measure protests vs
| how they have behaved at other protests (BLM, etc.) in
| the past.
|
| I think "defund the police" is a "transitional slogan"
| which might boil out into something better in terms of a
| more concrete demand if the movement it floats along in
| grows.
|
| That's my take.
| InTheArena wrote:
| This is the flip side of the "take trump seriously, not
| literally" argument that went around trying to normalize
| him in the last election.
|
| There are people who absolutely Believe that any police
| force is a slave enforcement force (or derived from one)
| and a tool of white tool to subjugate others. To them it
| must be eradicated.
| mrwh wrote:
| (Off-topic, but...)
|
| I recall an interview on KQED with an activist who
| absolutely was proposing to get rid of the entire police
| and carceral system. When asked how they would deal with,
| say, a murderer, their response was a) there'd be fewer
| murderers and b) there would be meditation between the
| murderer and the victim's family. I really wish the
| interviewer had asked, what happens if the victim doesn't
| have a family? Does this mean that rich murderers can pay
| their way out of any crime? Presumably it would!
|
| It was fascinating, partly because what was being
| described is a premodern world, in which crime is a
| purely personal matter and not the business of the state.
| It's a world of vendettas, in which the powerful operate
| with true impunity. I don't think the partisans of
| _really_ defunding the police appreciate this.
|
| (Note, I have a lot of sympathy with the idea that the
| police are doing too much, especially around mental
| health crises, and some funding could usefully be
| diverted, etc etc.)
| jayd16 wrote:
| In both cases, that's easily solved by actually
| considering the content of popular proposals instead of
| imagining what the proposals _might_ be.
| Karunamon wrote:
| You don't get to call your movement a name and then cry
| foul when that name is taken at its plain english
| meaning. "Reform" is just as pithy and just as easy to
| say, and infinitely more accurate.
| appletrotter wrote:
| > https://news.gallup.com/poll/316571/black-americans-
| police-r...
| afarrell wrote:
| I'd be grateful to see this broken down by municipality (or
| by precinct within NYC). If it is possible for a company to
| develop a dysfunctional culture which leads it to fail at
| serving its customers, why would the same not be true of
| police departments?
|
| If this hypothesis is right, then the problems of these
| communities are more tractable.
| pydry wrote:
| When it came to race, 63 percent of Black voters polled
| supported allocating portions of police funding to social
| programs, while only 35 percent of white voters agreed.
|
| https://thehill.com/homenews/news/542108-poll-finds-
| only-18-...
|
| It isnt a very popular slogan in general these days (even
| among blacks) but the rich, privileged and white people
| loathe it most of all.
| seibelj wrote:
| > "only experience of police is of being harassed, beaten
| and robbed."
|
| I think your representation of blacks and the police is
| woefully misinformed and is a figment of liberal
| imagination
| titzer wrote:
| Just wondering how many AirBnBs in Compton you've checked
| out.
| seibelj wrote:
| Yes Compton would be so much better without police! If
| only we could defund them
| titzer wrote:
| Your comments upthread were better; here you're just
| flinging polarizing labels and showing a massive lack of
| empathy for people who live a wholly different existence
| than you (and incidentally generally don't post on
| hackernews). "Defund the police" was dumb, but if you're
| gonna sink to trolling to "own the libs", then downvotes
| are going to rightly turn the volume down on it.
| seibelj wrote:
| Yes and you mentioning about hypothetical stays in
| Compton Airbnbs was such a massive addition to the
| discourse that my reply was such a downgrade! Incredible
| the mental hoops people like yourself jump through
| titzer wrote:
| Like I said, your comments upthread were better. Then you
| started trolling. I don't know what you were hoping for.
| I should have just downvoted, I normally would. HN sucks
| when this kind of thing breaks out. But I guess comments
| intended to provoke anger and division, hoping for an
| emotional reaction, some kind of engagement, sometimes
| get it. Shame to ruin Sundays that way.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| You're defending one luxury belief ("defund the police") with
| another ("the black experience with police is exclusively one
| of victimhood"). Notably, your "backlash" includes 81% of
| black Americans according to Gallup.
| fundad wrote:
| Agreed, Like any social program there is a constituency that
| supports policing. They experience far less violence and use
| the service an outsized amount.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I'm 100% sure you're not part of such a community. Neither am
| I, of course :)
|
| When polled, poor black people want _more_ policing, despite
| also agreeing with much of the defunder critique.
|
| Knowing both options, they prefer flawed policing to being
| ruled by criminal gangs.
| softcactus wrote:
| I have heard this cited numerous times, but have never seen
| an actual source.
| pydry wrote:
| Im not American.
|
| The Americans I do know who really hate defund are the
| _very definition_ of latte swilling liberals complaining
| about crime going up in their nice suburbs in SF, Portland
| and Seattle while... complaining bitterly about rich white
| liberals.
|
| The one supporter I do know lives a few blocks from George
| Floyd although the slogan seems to mean something different
| to her (transfer funds and responsibilities for mental
| health to social service departments).
| softcactus wrote:
| That's what most people mean when they say "defund". The
| problem is that America has an issue with being reactive
| instead of proactive. Instead of treating drugs and crime
| as an economics issue and getting ahead of it with social
| policies, we react to it after the fact and criminalize
| everything and pay for a standing army with zero
| accountability. Creating an arms race between gangs and
| police, with the average citizen paying twice-- once with
| their taxes and again with their freedoms.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| At least it's clear what Republicans mean by "Defund
| Planned Parenthood".
|
| If you have to keep explaining "when I say X, I really
| mean Y", you should maybe stop saying X.
| softcactus wrote:
| "Reallocate Police Budgets" doesn't have the same staying
| power.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| I'm affluent but grew up in an inner city. I NEVER had a
| positive experience with the police. Neutral was as good as
| it got.
|
| Wanting more policing and wanting to defund the current
| system are not oppositional. I want more cops doing shit
| that matters and less of the current police department.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| You prefer the third option of a much improved police
| force. I would love that too.
|
| But this is not a practical real world option. In the
| present, you fight crime with the police system you have.
| libraryatnight wrote:
| I feel like the "defund the police" slogan that was used
| as shorthand for radical reform and demilitarization has
| become an unfortunate focal-point in what should be a
| nuanced discussion of a very real problem. This seems to
| be a pattern. Americans seem to get stuck fighting at the
| surface level. It's amazing how much my conservative in-
| laws and I actually agree on if we remove any triggering
| key words from conversations.
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| I grew up in rural America and I would describe my
| experiences with police in the same terms. Of course, the
| purpose of policing is to deter crime, not give "positive
| experiences". And thanks in large part to these luxury
| beliefs, police departments are doing less preventative
| policing (routine traffic stops, etc) _especially in
| communities of color_ for fear of being the next
| Ferguson, and consequently violent crime is soaring all
| over the country.
| dghlsakjg wrote:
| Thinking back on it, I never had a positive experience in
| terms of outcome. Positive experience in terms of
| interaction would have been the consolation prize.
|
| Pulling over more people for expired tags and other
| pretext stops is hardly what we needed more of. I once
| had an officer decline to take a copy of video of my
| vehicle being stolen since he said it wasn't going to be
| investigated anyway. How does a department like that
| still have time to hand out turn signal tickets, and pop
| people for going 10 over at the bottom of a hill?
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| The problem with analyzing based on your own experience
| is that you don't experience the crime that you don't
| experience. The evidence coming out of this crime wave
| does seem to suggest that preventative policing _works_
| even if it leaves you and I with a bad taste in our
| mouths when we're the ones pulled over.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Defund the police blew up because it was a simple sounding
| solution that outsiders could support while they didn't have
| to deal with the consequences.
|
| Actual members of impoverished and minority communities never
| supported it, they wanted more policing to keep their
| neighborhoods safe. The base of support was privileged
| members outside of those communities.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Here's the most important part:
|
| > 3. The upper class, who wants to keep you mired in it
|
| I cannot stress enough how much division and polarization is
| driven by the wealthy who have a vested interest in sowing
| discord among the lower classes.
|
| The truth of the matter is that you, as a lower-income white
| person, have _way_ more in common with a lower-income black
| person than a wealthy white person. Yet the amount of people who
| will vehemently oppose the very idea that the likes of Jezz Bezos
| and 8 other people pay _slightly_ more taxes is mind-boggling.
|
| Republican-controlled state legislatures are busy passing laws to
| create wedge issues against trans people, gay people, womens'
| reproductive rights and so on. And it's nothing more than a
| method of control, of whipping up the base with issues most of
| the country actually doesn't care about.
|
| I really wish people were better at recognizing this manipulation
| as we've now progressed to the point where the #1 "news" show in
| the US is spreading straight up Nazi propaganda [1]. I don't mean
| that as a perjorative. It is quite literally Nazi propaganda.
|
| [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGb748VOcYU
| selimthegrim wrote:
| And yet Russian TV has Tucker Carlson on and calls Joe Biden a
| Nazi.
| faangiq wrote:
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > A common answer from the chattering class is money. The
| conventional view is that a lack of money leads to out-of-wedlock
| births.
|
| > But broken homes are a fairly recent phenomenon.
|
| I don't get why the author dismisses income, and especially
| income inequality, so quickly. Since the 1960s the income gap
| between the affluent and the working class has grown a lot. The
| quality of "working class" jobs has also declined. Where in 1960,
| "working class" meant you could afford a house, a car,
| healthcare, and often had a pension provided by your employer. A
| 2022 working class job looks more like Amazon warehouse work
| where you can be fired at any time for failing to meet some
| algorithmic quota.
|
| It's no wonder then that respect plays a role:
|
| > Money usually becomes an issue because he seems unwilling to
| keep at a job for any length of time, usually because of issues
| related to respect. Some of the jobs he can get don't pay enough
| to give him the self-respect he feels he needs, and others
| require him to get along with unpleasant customers and coworkers,
| and to maintain a submissive attitude toward the boss.
|
| Perhaps the real failing of the upper class is creating jobs that
| treat the working class like disposable cogs, liable to be
| discarded at will. And yet the author subtly shifts the blame for
| onto the working class for not putting up with it.
| PeterisP wrote:
| The 1960s USA is the exception rather than the norm, and thus
| is not a good point of comparison. It's a peak of the very
| peculiar post-WW2 global economy where most other industrial
| countries had their economies destroyed and this gave the USA
| middle class a unique privileged opportunity enabling
| conditions that weren't possible almost anywhere else, weren't
| possible for USA before, and most likely won't be possible for
| USA or anyone else ever again.
|
| Working conditions becoming unlike USA 1960s are an inevitable
| regression back to the norm as the rest of the world recovered
| after WW2. Look at the conditions of USA 1920s-1930s (or
| perhaps UK 1960s, or all of the non-Western countries today)
| for comparison instead; the society has to function well in
| these working conditions (which are quite ordinary in both
| historical and current global context) instead of hoping that a
| return to the 1960s-USA model (which simply won't happen) would
| fix the problems.
| gumby wrote:
| It's interesting to read these (plausible, far from absurd)
| analyses from the Anglosphere when we have an alternative to
| compare, to whit the northern European democracies where marriage
| is in steep decline across all social classes yet the societies
| are more successful (at least if your metrics are things like
| poverty rates, lifetimes, nutrition, stress, etc).
| refurb wrote:
| First off _the article says nothing about marriage_ it speaks
| of "two parent households", so an unmarried couple raising kids
| would fit the author's thesis entirely.
|
| Second, pretty sure I'd argue the recent riots in Sweden would
| _back up exactly_ the author's theory around poorly behaved
| young males.
|
| But hey, your nutritional rate is high!
| engineeringwoke wrote:
| > Second, pretty sure I'd argue the recent riots in Sweden
| would back up exactly the author's theory around poorly
| behaved young males.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
| rendall wrote:
| The article repeatedly talks about marriage.
|
| From the article, a quote: _even those who cohabit, believe
| that as long as they are not married, it is acceptable for
| either partner to walk away at any time, and for virtually
| any reason._
| AvocadoPanic wrote:
| Or 'migrants' exhibiting the typical behavior of their
| homeland.
|
| See Vienna 1683.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| The Lipka Tatars would like a word.
| AvocadoPanic wrote:
| They assimilated, and fought against the Turks at the
| battle of Vienna.
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| I think missing from this comparison is that while the US is
| quite different from Finland, New Hampshire when taken on its
| own is quite similar.
|
| But we never ask, "how could we make the whole US like New
| Hampshire?" and probably for good reason! I don't think we'd
| want the whole US to be that way. The US is big and diverse and
| that's a good thing.
| altairprime wrote:
| US diversity is not uniformly a good thing. It may be a good
| thing when it comes to positive examples of successful
| communities, but breakdowns in education, low income support,
| and wilderness management systems are apparent in all of our
| states and territories. The US should absolutely be adopting
| competent successful approaches from its union members at the
| federal level, even if it makes us all a little less
| distinctive and a little more New Hampshire.
| hotpotamus wrote:
| I like the diversity of accents and cuisine, but the
| difference in maternal mortality not so much.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It still seems like a moment of temporary stability though,
| especially as their social structure starts to stress from the
| old:worker ratio going from >5 to <2.
|
| I.e. unless they accept 30% immigration over the next 50 years,
| the system will be extremely stressed and may fracture.
| gumby wrote:
| > unless they accept 30% immigration over the next 50 years,
| the system will be extremely stressed and may fracture.
|
| There's no reason to expect that not to happen. Countries
| like Germany already been have a higher immigration rate than
| the US, and once had a much higher rate when they needed
| workers post war.
|
| European political decision making is primarily bullshit
| muddle and and absurd "compromise" yet in the end is
| surprisingly pragmatic. Unfortunately for the US it's become
| high conflict rather than vapid muddle, which makes it harder
| for people to move their positions.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| About 19% of the US is immigrant compared to like 17% in
| Germany, so they are fairly similar. Can they bring the
| rest of Europe along though? It's a huge challenge...
| gumby wrote:
| According to the UN, in 2019 Germany had 15.7% foreign
| born and USA 15.4%.
|
| And the AfD notwithstanding, Germany has the pragmatic
| Gastarbeiter precedent.
|
| The larger precedent, for all cultures, is that
| idealistic views (immigrants good! Immigrants bad!) fade
| dramatically and rapidly when pragmatic issues emerge.
| eastbound wrote:
| Being expert in male/female statistics, the EU is generally
| only 4% far from USA gender statistics, and closing in on a
| 10-year delay. The only difference between USA and EU is that
| it is exaggerated in the media, while the trends which happen
| in EU have already been experienced in USA so people have
| already had time to get used to it, therefore news are less
| sensationalist.
|
| In other words, your impression that EU culture, statistics or
| law are different from USA is not verifiable in measurements. I
| agree however, that we think we are immune to USA problems when
| we live in EU.
| nottorp wrote:
| US thinkers have no idea what a social safety net is so they
| draw their conclusions without taking that option into account.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| "US thinkers" is a ridiculously broad term. There are plenty
| of Americans who think and know what a social safety net is.
| Some of them know about it because they read, some because
| they think, some because they've travelled, some because
| they've lived in countries with a stronger social safety net
| than the USA. What _is_ true in the USA is that there are
| people who know what a social safety net is and are adamant
| that we should not have one, and who are willing to get much
| closer to actually say that than most of their equivalents in
| Europe (though this has been changing a bit in recent years).
| Ensorceled wrote:
| > "US thinkers" is a ridiculously broad term.
|
| It's a pretty good generalization, however. I see it over
| and over again in US political discussions a total, and
| possibly (probably?) deliberate, blindness to the idea that
| health card could be socialized, UI and welfare could be
| better, access to education could be universal and things
| like job training or maternity leave could exist, etc.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| Then you're not connecting with the US "left" (probably
| not a coincidence). The Nation is both the oldest
| continuously published weekly magazine in the US (founded
| in 1865) and consistently represents different parts of
| the US left. Jacobin is another good example.
|
| It is true that if you watch network or cable TV from the
| US, you will not find the actual left represented, other
| than perhaps Bernie Sanders. What they will call "the
| left" is mostly centrist Democrats whose position can be
| summarized as "things as basically OK but we need to be
| nicer in a few specific ways".
| nottorp wrote:
| > Then you're not connecting with the US "left" (probably
| not a coincidence).
|
| I doubt the US left knows what left is :)
| refurb wrote:
| It's also fun seeing US thinkers explain what life is like in
| Europe but clearly never lived there and are actually wrong
| about a lot of it.
| vinay427 wrote:
| I don't find it fun. It's about as fun as seeing "European
| thinkers" do the same about the US, as someone who has
| lived in both regions, although one direction is perhaps
| more vocal than the other. Whether it's a positive or
| negative misconception, I find it more frustrating than
| amusing when one's confidence is mismatched with the
| quality or reliability of information (i.e. ignorance).
| Ensorceled wrote:
| I've always found it interesting that Americans who could
| literally see Canadian flags across the St. Lawrence River
| or live in border states such as Minnesota or Michigan,
| have such bizarre views on the quality of Canadian health
| care and other social services.
| dasudasu wrote:
| To think that the US has no social safety is also a common
| trope. Food stamps, medicaid, public & section 8 housing,
| SSDI, EI, etc. in combination with the unique opportunities
| allowed by American society to get back on your feet (low
| unemployment and barrier to entry). Americans in general have
| no idea how "humble" life can be for the European lower
| classes. Fun fact: Canada and the US have about the same
| homelessness rates on a per capita basis.
| nottorp wrote:
| > Americans in general have no idea how "humble" life can
| be for the European lower classes.
|
| Don't think said lower classes live in fear of a "major
| health event".
| dasudasu wrote:
| My understanding is that the poorest people are covered
| by medicare or get their fees waved (hospitals won't
| refuse to treat someone needing critical care). That is
| not "zero social net". Nobody is in fact jealous of the
| American healthcare system though. Meanwhile, in most
| countries in Europe, people live in fear of having to be
| put on wait lists that extend from months to years, or
| just plain being unable to access any care at all due to
| said systems being overloaded at times due to having much
| less overall slack (for example during covid).
| gumby wrote:
| Waitlists can be visibly bad in the UK but if you read
| German or French papers you'll see complaints about "wait
| lists" that seem laughable by US standards.
|
| I live in SV so can afford a level of health care well
| above the usual middle class. Yet I have a literal A/B
| test: my kid broke his arm in Germany and also in the US
| and the ordinary treatment he got In Germany was
| significantly superior to that at Stanford Hospital --
| ant at a fraction of the cost.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Curious to see the source showing European democracies are more
| successful, controlling for socioeconomic status.
| karpierz wrote:
| What does it mean to be "successful, controlling for
| socioeconomic status"?
|
| Their success is defined by their peoples' socioeconomic
| status.
| jandrese wrote:
| Maybe it would be better to say "controlling for
| immigration policies"? But even then the US is going to
| come out behind because those countries don't have the
| legacies of slavery still weighing them down.
| gumby wrote:
| Germany, US, France have about the same percentage of
| immigrants if you want to compare things like life
| expectancy on that basis.
| endisneigh wrote:
| If that's the case then the USA is superior to all but a
| few European democracies per capita and all of them
| nominally?
|
| Even Massachusetts would be superior than every European
| country per capita.
| gumby wrote:
| I don't understand: are you talking about PPP GDP per
| capita? I agree that the US optimizes for that, but it
| doesn't translate into higher quality of life by metrics
| like life expectancy, literacy, leisure time,
| malnutrition, proportion of "precariat" etc.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Yes, hence my original question.
| dijit wrote:
| It all depends on what you're aiming for, socio-economically.
|
| If you want billionaires then the US model is much more
| successful.
|
| If you want a wide middle class then the Swedish model is
| more successful.
|
| If you want happiness then the Danish model is more
| successful.
|
| If you want to eliminate poverty then the Finnish model is
| more successful.
| paconbork wrote:
| Sweden and Norway have more billionaires per capita than
| the US does.
| refurb wrote:
| Heritable wealth is much bigger in Europe than the US.
| _se wrote:
| True, but I'm not sure that per capita matters so much.
| The USA has only about 5% of the world's people, but
| nearly 30% of the world's billionaires. That's a very
| large share (and nearly 1.5x as large as the next
| largest, China, with around 3x the population).
| Aunche wrote:
| It's disingenuous to compare a country with another country
| with 1/30th the size. Otherwise, you'd come to the
| conclusion that Sweden would be better off as a tax haven
| like Luxembourg. Massachusetts matches the Nordic nations
| by most metrics, and blows them out of the water in terms
| of median income.
| dijit wrote:
| We're not talking about tax havens, or "exploits" such as
| those which require exploitation of a global financial
| system.
|
| We're talking about countries and the claim that the USA
| is too big for decent social systems is just about the
| most stupid thing I've ever heard.
|
| Either you have enough GDP for each state that it could
| be it's own country, or you don't. But it feels picky and
| choosy to say "we are extremely wealthy" and then later
| say "ah. But we're too big for social programmes. It
| would cost too much".
|
| It's a weird kind of double-speak that might have an iota
| of truth in either direction, but those positions cannot
| be simultaneously held.
| gumby wrote:
| I cannot disagree with what you stated, but your last
| sentence misses the point.
|
| Incomes are nominally higher in Massachusetts and costs
| for certain staples (energy, food, automobile) are
| nominally lower, compared to Western Europe. Yet I can't
| say the outcome is better (note I have lived in France,
| Germany and Massachusetts).
|
| The fact is life is more precarious in MA: it appears
| that you have more disposable income but crucial things
| like health care (perhaps best in USA), school (crucial
| for keeping your head above water) and such means you
| spend more of your time and money looking after your life
| and less actually living it.
|
| You can see this in the numbers, too: not just life
| expectancy but in things like money available (and spent)
| on vacations and other leisure, reported levels of stress
| and debt.
|
| I'm not trying to claim that any country is some sort of
| utopia. My root comment was simply that the analysis of
| the post we are discussing was simplistic and ignored
| confounding examples of countries with the claimed "bad"
| things doing better by their citizens.
| danschuller wrote:
| To me this reads like an opinion piece that will date quickly.
| Though the problem it identifies certainly exists.
|
| > At the event, Parkinson stressed the importance of stability
| and two-parent families for children.
|
| As oppose to a single parent that needs to work all the time,
| sure. But just read a few anthropology books, every possible
| combination of family and child raising method has worked in the
| past. Children raised in a small village, or extended family
| seems like it would be even better than a some modern concept of
| a traditional family where one member works and other cares for
| the house and children. In the UK the popular opinion in
| Victorian times was that children should not be shown affection
| because it would make them weak. Or even continuing to this day
| that the upper class don't really involve themselves with the
| child rearing too much - nannies and boarding schools. Probably
| that's another rearing method that's quite poor
| https://bylinetimes.com/2021/04/28/boris-johnson-is-a-boardi...
| libraryatnight wrote:
| Holy crap I never imagined so much weird Ward Cleaver ideology
| from HN. This thread is insane to read. I expected this article
| to be universally eviscerated, since it's tons of conjecture and
| bad data badly interpreted, but there's a ton of people who
| apparently feel like their male identity is attached to some
| bizarre archetype. Some sort of fucked up Form for men floating
| out in the ether that looks like a cross between Archie Bunker
| and John Wayne.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| Yet, you've taken this as a chance to demean _an entire thread_
| rather than engage in good faith and explore that difference of
| opinion.
|
| Do you think that kind of reflexive insulting dismissal is...
|
| ...a healthy response?
|
| ...a positive contribution?
|
| ...a symptom of what they're trying to explain?
| libraryatnight wrote:
| That's the trouble, they don't know what they're trying to
| explain. This thread is a reverberation chamber for
| irrational masculine fear. A bunch of people trying to
| pinpoint something that may not even exist, and choosing to
| look backward for familiarity. You can't engage with that.
| Not online.
|
| Sometimes the healthy response is "This shit is nuts, I'm
| going to go talk to people in person and touch some grass."
| zmgsabst wrote:
| I think you're calling it "irrational" to give yourself an
| excuse to engage in bad faith -- such as using demeaning
| language towards a large group of people.
|
| That gives you an "out" from having to understand something
| that might conflict with a belief you hold or make you
| uncomfortable.
| kkfx wrote:
| IMVHO there are various variables the article do not take into
| account: we are in a decadent society, decadent enough that most
| cohorts/social classes see it, but in a too early stage to see
| something new to start structuring enough to know what we can do
| to pass the mess.
|
| Middle class is deeply demolished, pushed to far lower level of
| wealth, high, but not so high class start seeing a possible
| escape toward a new neofeudal class but present situation is too
| liquid to been able to spot a right place and development plan,
| the only reasonable target is being flexible and diverse as much
| as possible, and that for young of the first cohort means the
| certainty of a future worse than that of their parents, witch
| fuel unrest and abandonment not taking careers since so far no
| one taught as you want seems to appear. For the second cohort
| that means try avoiding a career at all to avoid being trapped
| preferring gambling on family money waiting for the appearance of
| a more defined future. Both those cohort are acculturated enough
| to know that in anything the first pioneers who arrive, the
| frontier/first line will suffer and die quickly, the seconds,
| thanks to the knowledge of the pioneers prosper and the third
| will arrive late to prosper.
|
| Poor know that they will be poorer but that is sold as not a such
| bad thing, they say society keep going in the end, humans are
| there for millennia and while there was good and bad moments for
| the _real_ poor situations have mostly improved a bit, having
| seen a potential "in 2030 you'll own nothing and be happy" many
| of that cohort trust or at least desperately hope that that's
| will be the case.
|
| So IMO essentially all "social classes" except for a very thin
| and more and more thinner elite see a bad future and no interest
| to do anything positive, some because there is no logic possible
| plan to go through the storm some because they think the storm is
| already around them and they can just hope not knowing because of
| lack of culture the classic una salus victis nullam sperare
| salutem.
|
| Honestly, myself, coming from a wealthy family who can afford
| essentially anything we might reasonably want having a good
| personal social position, I have _many_ ideas but still deeply
| hesitate because so far I can 't see anything defined enough in
| the medium-long term. Schools was a deep delusion, at first I
| study at home with family selected teachers and with wonderful
| results confronted with my friends. At high school I decide to go
| to a school and the result was shockingly bad, I literally lived
| on income for almost all the time, having already more knowledge
| than the demand. At uni another delusion, programs seems to be
| designed to form Ford-model stereotypical workers just at an a
| bit formally higher level. That's was _extremely_ demotivating
| and I do not know how can be for those who haven 't even see
| something else.
|
| Long story short it's more than mere no expectation: the modern
| society being way too elitist have deprived of _any_ expectation
| anyone, promoting and rewarding mediocrity, crushing those who
| have personal expectations and desire with the clear aim of
| creating a society of useful idiots in the classic Greek sense,
| human-robots to be bolted is a pre-defined system. In that
| environment young can choose between:
|
| - being criminals;
|
| - being terrorists, as a sub-type of criminals whose target is
| more political and long term than for short-term profit;
|
| - being nihilists abandoned on the screen to just see the world
| run as a spectacle.
|
| I fear that there is no non-destructive ways out of such impasse.
| We are so folded in such a crappy social model that a war, a
| full-scale tragedy seems to be the least devastating option to
| change. History however tell that such movements never goes as
| planned, so plans are deeply needed and incredibly hard, while we
| all know that nothing will go according to the plan anyway, the
| needed plan is just a pre-digested guide to hope being
| successfully counter possible development in shorter times...
| That's stressful enough to made most just hopeless and a few
| minority neurotic and angry enough to being unable to do much
| more than quick shots guided by anger and emotions in general.
| secondcoming wrote:
| The article mentioned nothing about contraception. Is it not
| easily accessible?
| tootie wrote:
| > Norms were loosened around being an absentee father. So more
| men took the option.
|
| > But nobody wants to admit it because it upsets people.
|
| This is the main thesis of the post sandwiched by loads of data
| and charts yet completely unsourced and devoid of evidence. Maybe
| true, maybe not. This is basically a well-reasoned hypothesis but
| there's no reason to believe it's true.
| mkl95 wrote:
| In my relatively wealthy EU country there are two types of non
| upper class young men: those who are set to receive a relatively
| large inheritance and those who don't.
|
| People in the second group have to work much harder than those in
| the first group to achieve well-being, even if they are
| professionally successful. People in the first group can afford
| to underachieve, since they will progressively become richer than
| those in the second group anyway.
|
| The way I see it there is not simply a low and middle class,
| there is a multitude of subclasses among them that are mostly
| defined by inheritance. Partly as a result of it, we now live in
| awkward economic bubbles that don't mate with each other.
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| So what's your point?
| mkl95 wrote:
| > And a lot did use to be expected. There were social norms
| to work hard, provide, take care of loved ones, and so on.
| Today, these norms have largely dissolved. Young men have
| responded accordingly.
|
| I mostly agree, but I think there are more causes than what
| is implied by OP.
|
| My suspicion is that working hard is still a social norm, but
| the way wealth has been distributed over the previous decades
| no longer lets workers climb the social ladder simply by
| working hard.
|
| I think birth rates are low because having kids is a luxury,
| particularly when you have no safety net. Certain low/middle
| subclasses (for instance, those who inherit several
| properties) tend to have kids eventually, but they
| increasingly have them at an advanced age (35+).
|
| Some countries economies -mine, at the very least- have been
| disfigured to the point where there really isn't a clear
| motivation to have kids unless you are rich.
| cat_plus_plus wrote:
| So let's just blame men for everything? True, historically men
| have been expected to bring home the bacon, protect their
| families from violence and disrespect and discipline sons who may
| otherwise get in trouble, and that is missing nowadays. But women
| ALSO had responsibilities - making home pleasant even on modest
| means, well behaved children that are a pleasure to come home to
| after a long day of work, encouraging good behavior and
| investment in family from a man through enthusiastic
| appreciation. The ideal of Western feminism is independence, but
| families work on healthy mutual interdependence in the face of
| statistically different - though individually variable - gender
| traits.
| hackerfromthefu wrote:
| And let's not forget that men used to be respected, for being
| men and doing those things. These days it seems the zeitgeist
| is they get nagged and complained at, and little wonder they
| aren't vested.
| greatpostman wrote:
| xpe wrote:
| Have you reviewed the HN guidelines recently? As I understand
| it, there is no need to comment on being banned or downvoted.
| Just say what you think is worth saying, being mindful of the
| guidelines.
| xpe wrote:
| Have you studied statistics?
|
| Using a variable to group a large number is people is essential
| to statistically understand variation within that group.
|
| It seems like you may be unaware of the difference between
| normative and positive statements.
| macinjosh wrote:
| If that is true, banding large swathes of the American
| population by melanin content is just as non-nonsensical.
| hans1729 wrote:
| Your comment implies that you categorically deny correlations
| between social security and psychological development and well-
| being. Intellectually, I find this provoking, see maslows
| pyramid. Would you please give your audience and your comment
| the slightly more nuanced elaboration they deserve?
| slickrick216 wrote:
| Why would you be banned for this. People are different?
| joeberon wrote:
| gilbetron wrote:
| By my reading, he is saying that it isn't about socioeconomic
| status, but the race of the person that is causing things.
| Aka, simple racism.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| > This highly educated and affluent person prioritized stability
| for her own children. But refused to publicly endorse this value
| so that less fortunate children could also benefit from family
| stability.
|
| Why would such a person ever do something like this? This is
| basically living a lie? Has society gone so low that it's
| considered admirable to take such a position?
| carapace wrote:
| First, let's get this out of the way,
|
| > In 1960, across social classes, the vast majority of children
| were raised by both of their birth parents. By 2005, there was a
| massive divergence. What happened?
|
| The 60's happened.
|
| Social norms broke down all over the world.
|
| - - - -
|
| Yes, the rich by and large want the poor to be tractable docile
| workers. Look at history, the relatively recent mass colonization
| of half the world by a tiny island nation. Slavery. The wealthy
| and powerful always try to subjugate whoever they can. It's their
| golf.
|
| - - - -
|
| Yes, society keeps young men in line with the "carrot" of
| (culturally sanctioned) sex and the stick of
| ostracism/shunning/shame. This is one of the fundamental pillars
| of what we call culture.
|
| (The other being death, but that's less popular than sex. With
| the recent and relative rarity of hairy jerks with swords showing
| up out of the blue one day to burn down the village and kill,
| maim, or kidnap everybody in the place, we now use hallucinatory
| bogeymen for the most part.)
|
| - - - -
|
| Technology has obsolesced a great deal of the work these young
| folk used to do. (Mostly farming and war.) They are "surplus to
| requirement" from the POV of the system. All that oxycontin
| abuse? The rash of suicides? Symptoms of the malaise.
|
| - - - -
|
| So yeah, it sucks to be a drone.
|
| (Heck, if I wasn't good with computers I'd probably be homeless
| right now. And even that is getting squiffy these days.)
|
| - - - -
|
| On the flip side, there has never been a better time to do
| things. We have radio-networked pocket supercomputers that can
| access pretty much the entirety of human knowledge from all of
| history and all of the world, there are robots, and it's never
| been easier to get laid.
|
| I threw that last one in as a joke, but it cuts back to the core
| of the article: once we relax that social control of access to
| sex, does society fall apart?
|
| (And also the loss of the "common enemy". It's a truism in
| political science that a common enemy is very very helpful for
| establishing and maintaining social cohesion. But again we
| talking mostly about sex here.)
|
| I think the answer to that is, "It depends."
|
| It seems to me that with easy access to birth control we should
| be seeing the responsible parents having more kids and the
| promiscuous folks having fewer, eh? So over time society would
| get stronger, no?
|
| Maybe most people fall into non-reproductive hedonism and the
| Amish inherit the Earth?
|
| - - - -
|
| I think the bottom line is that if you find yourself a poor male
| with few prospects you have to figure out a lifestyle that you
| can live with and get on with it. Society mostly doesn't give a
| shit about you and is unlikely to start. You can blame the
| elites, but I've met some and they are just as clueless as
| everybody else, they just have more money, so it's pretty
| pointless to blame them. And anyway if you try to do anything to
| them they can and will shoot you. The entire US Army is
| essentially there to protect the elites, so good luck with that,
| if you want to be a rebel.
|
| So where does that leave you?
|
| Make some money. Find some good, solid folks and family up with
| them. Start a commune in the woods. Live happily ever after. I'm
| not joking: I've met people that have done this. They are very
| happy. And there is no (NO!) information about their "thing" on
| the Internet whatsoever. Think about that: these smurfy people
| totally exist but you cannot learn of them via the Internet. Most
| of the really happy settled folks out there DO NOT advertise.
| They keep quiet. They do not do SEO. You won't see them on
| television or youtube.
|
| No one is making money from telling you about them so you won't
| hear about them unless you go looking.
|
| There's a whole world of happy "alternate" lifestyles but "the
| system" won't tell you about them because it's against the
| system's interests! That's why hippies are always portrayed as
| dipshits on TV: if you saw for yourselves the lives of the non-
| dipshit hippies you would "quit your job, repent, and slack off."
|
| Really it goes back to European vs. Native lifestyles and
| colonization. The Europeans were psychotic bastards who murdered
| and tortured and enslaved people, and who had absolute masters
| and abject servants, and all kinds of psychotic baggage. The
| native cultures were (and still are in many many places) not
| quite so messed up.
|
| People who could get away from the towns and join Native American
| societies _didn 't want to go back_. Whereas Natives had to be
| forced (typically with savage brutality) to adopt European
| culture.
|
| "Going native" was perceived as a serious problem, because it
| was: if you didn't like society, or your actual literal "master"
| (a person under the psychotic delusion that he or she actually
| literally _owned_ you) you could try to escape to, say, the Sioux
| nation.
|
| We mostly exterminated or marginalized these societies, and
| filled and/or enclosed most of the open land, so it seems like
| options are fewer.
|
| And today we have "the homeless" to act as a goad: if you don't
| work you will starve in the street. There's not supposed to be a
| way out.
|
| This in a land (I'm continuing being provincial here and talking
| about North America) where the herds of buffalo were so large
| they could take more than a day to pass by, where the rivers were
| so thick with salmon during spawning season that it's said you
| could walk across them, where flocks of passenger pigeons were so
| thick and numerous that they could eclipse the sun and turn day
| into night.
|
| We destroyed it, farmed ourselves into the "Dust Bowl", etc...
|
| It doesn't have to be this way, there's a better life out there,
| but the system won't help you reach it.
|
| So fuck the system. Go make your won system.
| ridaj wrote:
| Why should we believe that the author's perceived value signaling
| by some class of society (which is debatable already in a
| somewhat puritanical society) is the primary responsible for
| other adults' behavior? This seems so infantilizing. The poor do
| have agency too.
| WalterBright wrote:
| It's really sad that the professionals disagreed in public but
| agreed in private.
| dmschulman wrote:
| I'm confused by their introduction. The author cites changes in
| family structure in two specific neighborhoods (Fishtown in
| Philadelphia and Belmont in Massachusetts) but uses this data
| point to imply an unsubstantiated national trend. And all the
| while overlooking any other reasons why the presence of fathers
| declined in one white community after the 1960s.
|
| Henderson suffers from the same research bias as Charles Murray,
| the author of the cited study. I don't disagree with Henderson's
| conclusion in general, but the journey from A to B is
| inconsistent as Fishtown and Philadelphia (the poorest city in
| America) as a whole are substantial case studies on
| deindustrialization and the impact those lost jobs have on a once
| thriving community.
|
| This deindustrialization is also partially responsible for the
| increase in drug use and drug activity in Fishtown during this
| time of unprecedented job loss. Fishtown used to be the opioid
| capital of the country in the 1970s. This activity has since been
| pushed into the adjacent neighborhood of Kensington [1].
|
| The impact of deindustrialization and the loss of good paying
| factory/union jobs has more to do with the breakdown of the
| family unit in the last 70 years than any of the other idea
| Henderson cites.
|
| 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/10/magazine/kensington-
| heroi...
| dqpb wrote:
| > The people with the most money and education--the class most
| responsible for shaping culture and customs--ensure that their
| children are raised in stable homes. But actively undermine the
| norm for everyone else.
|
| His very weak evidence for this was one affluent person who
| didn't want to admit publicly that she prioritizes stability for
| her children over self gratification - a value which goes against
| the grain of her inner circle.
|
| He spins that as a class war conspiracy.
| jdrc wrote:
| What about young women? Aren't they supposedly the gatekeepers to
| procreation? The ones that have evolved to choose what's best for
| their kids (a two family home)? Did they stop choosing right?
| tsupiroti wrote:
| > The educated class decides cohabiting partnerships are just as
| valid and important as marriage. And they also believe it's okay
| to walk away at a moment's notice from a cohabiting relationship.
|
| This is very dependent on whether there are children or not. I
| don't think the educated class believes that it's ok for a father
| to just walk away from their children and refuse to be a major
| part of their lives.
| Animats wrote:
| _" We have found no evidence to contradict the basic general
| principle that men will do whatever is required in order to
| obtain sex, and perhaps not a great deal more."_
|
| This.
| causality0 wrote:
| _What happened?_
|
| The article makes some fantastic and insightful points but one
| thing it ignores that I think is important is the fact we started
| paying people not to get married in the form of increased public
| benefits for single parents.
| jeromegv wrote:
| You mean that single parent would be better to stay with their
| abusive spouse because they depend on them financially?
|
| How's that better?
| causality0 wrote:
| I'm not saying it's better. I'm saying it's a significant
| contributing factor to the increased percentage of unmarried
| mothers.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Wow, lots of controversial things in here.
|
| "You put a guy in chaotic and impoverished circumstances. And
| then you decide not to expect anything out of him. How can anyone
| possibly believe this will lead to anything other than disaster?"
|
| I think the author has neglected a hugely important factor in
| this. Sure, what others expect of you can influence you greatly.
| But what one expects for themselves is a huge factor too. This
| self expectation can be largely driven by what opportunities one
| perceives to be available to them. Some of those perceptions are
| influenced by others, like teachers or parents exposing the child
| to a possible career path. Others are what the see their peers
| and slightly older group doing. Among this vein...
|
| How hard is it to get a decent job today if you have a criminal
| record, even a minor one, vs in the 1970s?
|
| How have real wages trended since the 70s?
|
| Where have the high paying (relative to working fast food, etc)
| manufacturing jobs gone? How many jobs require expensive college
| degrees now?
|
| Enlisting used to be a widely available option. How about now? I
| believe it's much more selective about who they take.
|
| It might not be that young men are expected to do nothing. It
| might be that society has created a system in which it is hard
| for young men to do _anything_. If you have a lack of hope
| because the deck is stacked against you and none of your peers
| are making anything of themselves, then why wouldn 't most people
| give up? Lack of hope and reduction in meaningful opportunity is
| a huge problem. There are many factors behind these. But the
| author doesn't seem to touch on any of them.
| rayiner wrote:
| What are real wages like in lower middle class America compared
| to Asian or African countries that have a fraction of the rate
| of kids being raised without both parents?
| skrbjc wrote:
| Africa is seeing increasing rates of single motherhood.
| According to this study:
| http://paa2019.populationassociation.org/uploads/191108 All
| Africa single motherhood is 22%, with Eastern Africa at 37%.
|
| They had this to say about marriage in traditional African
| cultures: " Marriage in the traditional African society was
| described by Evans Pritchard (1965) as a "given", there was
| no such thing as unmarried adult woman or one who was
| childless by choice; ... and women could not choose a career
| instead of marriage" (Gage and Bledsoe 1994). Most African
| societies had sanctions for childbearing outside marriage, in
| some East African communities, it was punishable by death, in
| other places in Africa it was abortion or infanticide (Gage
| and Bledsoe 1994). There was no place for permanent
| singlehood except for religious celibates."
|
| On the increasing rates of single motherhood: " The rising
| levels of single motherhood in the region is occasioned in
| part by adaptation to changes brought about by education,
| mobility associated with employment, gendered migration,
| poverty, shortage of marriageable men, increased death rate
| due to HIV/AIDS pandemic, decline in early and arranged
| marriage and polygyny (Gage and Bledsoe 1994; Isiugo-Abanihe
| 2000; Gustafsson and Worku 2006; Smith 2007; Moyo and Kawewe
| 2009)."
|
| My guess is the reason we see lower rates of single
| motherhood in very poor countries is less to do with the fact
| they are poor and more likely to be because they are closer
| to their traditional cultural norms that strongly push for
| marriage and child rearing. It seems as countries get greater
| access to education and industrialization, as they modernize,
| they start to see these societal issues like single parent
| households and the negative consequences that result from
| that. Kinda like how as societies get greater access to more
| food they move from starving to getting obese and those
| associated medical issues.
| giantg2 wrote:
| That would be interesting to see. Maybe you can show us the
| numbers, adjust for COL, adjust for definition of success,
| adjust for academic differences, and adjust for cultural
| biases.
| rayiner wrote:
| What does adjusting for "cultural biases" mean?
| giantg2 wrote:
| Cultural factors that can influence the measures and
| outcomes.
| rayiner wrote:
| But the argument is that Bangladeshi villages are more
| peaceful than American inner cities, despite being vastly
| poorer, because of cultural reasons. It's almost as if
| America has a more traditional culture in the past--when
| it was poorer than today--and then there were massive
| cultural changes around the same time crime started
| skyrocketing.
| neophyt3 wrote:
| probably this might be related with veritasium video about thomas
| midgley jr. works
| taylorius wrote:
| I think these "chattering classes" overestimate their influence
| on how young people grow up. Their position papers and articles
| in the Atlantic are nothing compared to the tidal wave of media
| from Youtube, Tiktok, Hollywood etc. And those media engines
| prize the quick dopamine hit above all else - criminals,
| gangsters, hustlers - anything but a hard working family man.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| Social media also encourages people to present a highly
| exaggerated and curated, if not outright fabricated, view of
| their lives to the world. Others in their networks then compare
| this to their actual lives and feel inadequate.
| azornathogron wrote:
| Something here that doesn't seem to make sense to me: The idea
| that the middle class determines relationship norms that are then
| followed by the working class/poorer people. I didn't see the
| argument for why this would be the case and I'm not sure I buy it
| just on its face. But ok, since he's quoting from something else
| perhaps he just didn't quote the argument. Assuming the claim is
| basically correct, that relationship norms are determined by the
| middle class (for example, perhaps due to middle class influence
| on how relationships are depicted in TV & film), then what's the
| explanation for poorer people following the cultural shift toward
| less commitment or later commitment (the stuff about "as long as
| they are not married, it is acceptable for either partner to walk
| away at any time"), but _not_ copying the shift toward _having
| children later_?
|
| As I see it, what's happened in the middle class is that
| relationships don't reach the stage of full commitment until much
| later (walking away is considered to be normal and healthy prior
| to marriage, people expect to have several relationships before
| "settling down", etc), but having children before you've reached
| a committed relationship is still very much thought of as
| reckless and bad.
|
| So overall I just don't really buy this part; it does not seem
| well supported by the rest of the piece.
|
| Quoting the paras just as a reference for which part I'm
| referring to: "The educated class decides cohabiting partnerships
| are just as valid and important as marriage. And they also
| believe it's okay to walk away at a moment's notice from a
| cohabiting relationship.
|
| "Poor and working-class people follow suit. To the detriment of
| themselves and their children."
| sanderjd wrote:
| I'm enjoying this article, but this conclusion to the first
| section seems like a non sequitur to me:
|
| > _Those who sit at or near the apex of the social ladder (who
| decide what behaviors are prestigious) have decided that family
| stability is unimportant._
|
| Up to this point, the problem statement has all been about
| choices made by those lacking wealth, but now we seem to have
| suddenly veered into that being the fault of those "at or near
| the apex of the social ladder" and in a way I can't relate to. On
| the contrary, hard work and "hustle" seems more high status than
| ever!
|
| Maybe this is a minor point, but I have been finding this two-
| step of 1. Identify a problem among the low status / poor / blue
| collar, 2. Blame it on the elite, disorienting. I first came
| across it in JD Vance's book where I thought he did a really good
| job of identifying problems with the culture he was raised in but
| then ended the book with (in my view) misplaced blame and no real
| ideas for how to fix any of the problems. And it just seems like
| I've seen people (JD Vance quintessentially) doubling and
| tripling down on that pattern ever since.
|
| Edit to add (now that I've finished reading the article): I think
| there is an entire premise here that I really don't buy, that
| this culture is driven by the affluent and "middle class meaning
| college degree holders". In my experience this isn't right at
| all; nobody in the working class cares in the slightest what
| academics at Harvard or wherever think about family formation and
| stability. They aren't aware of what academics think, and
| wouldn't care what they think if they were to become aware of it.
| It is very roundabout to identify a cultural problem and then
| blame that problem on the milieu within a different culture that
| does not exhibit the same problem...
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >Norms were loosened around being an absentee father. So more men
| took the option.
|
| I'm afraid that the author got it wrong. All social norms were
| destroyed between 1950's and now. If society desires hard
| working, law abiding, family loving young men, it should rebuild
| what it destroyed.
|
| The only interesting point in the story was about that "expert"
| which publicly behaves how society coerces her now to behave but
| secretly raises her own children in a way that she deems better
| for their well-being but comes into contradiction with the norms
| of the day.
|
| So yes, trying to destroy family, religion, men self esteem and
| purpose in life, by creating a hedonistic society with no morals
| will prove a disaster for Western society. A disaster which if
| extended for long will equate to suicide.
|
| I wouldn't blame young men but those evil people who continuously
| waged war on Western civilization and tried to demolish
| everything good while promising freedom, justice, equality.
| Freedom, justice and equality nobody got.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Religion destroyed plenty of people and continues to right now.
| In the 19-20th centuries of the USA it wasn't such a pleasant
| life for non-WASP or women.
| [deleted]
| solenoidalslide wrote:
| noisy_boy wrote:
| At first you had extended families as norm and that was a huge
| safety net. Then even with nuclear family, the wages people
| earned were enough for one to manage by themselves, even without
| the wife working (if she did, ever better). Now there is little
| familial safety net, wages for low-paying jobs are all-time low,
| people are doing 2-3 jobs to survive, stress-levels are all time
| high, no body wants to have a conversation and is ready to walk
| at a moment's notice and the root cause of the broken family is
| that poor people are following upper class's example? Sure, why
| not.
| plaguepilled wrote:
| That's a nice argument senator,
|
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKeKuaJ4nlw)
| bawolff wrote:
| I found this article confusing.
|
| It seems to be claiming that differing social norms leads to
| unstable lower class families.
|
| But a) im pretty sure being a deadbeat dad is still considred bad
| among all social classes
|
| b) if that was the case, why is this disporpotionately affecting
| lower class. Do middle class have different norms?
|
| C) the article talks about a woman who broke up with her partner
| because he was a shit partner. Isn't that the opposite of the
| thesis of the article? Man did not meet expectations so was
| kicked to the curve?
| meken wrote:
| kicked to the curb *
| twoxproblematic wrote:
| DeathArrow wrote:
| I can't find a point in history where the extreme left produced
| anything else than doom.
|
| As someone who grew up in a poor Eastern European country, I felt
| both envy and admiration for the US. I thought the Americans had
| best of everything. US seemed like an ideal in many senses.
|
| 20 or 30 years later, I feel grateful we still have families,
| traditions, respect for ourselves and a way of life which can
| lead to moments of happiness. All of these are under pressure
| from self appointed far left elites trying to "civilize" and
| "westernized" us. I hope they won't succeed and that the West is
| starting to come back to it's lost senses. A civilization built
| in thousands of years shouldn't be destroyed in few tens of years
| by madmen and lunatics.
|
| I will happily accept all downvotes, but I rather get downvotes
| then not say what I feel.
| aiisjustanif wrote:
| This reads like an old school Casey Neistat documentary [1] [1]:
| https://vimeo.com/9054074
| juanani wrote:
| pyuser583 wrote:
| I read somewhere that back in the 1970s divorce was common on
| upper class women, but rare among lower class women.
|
| Now it's the reverse.
| softcactus wrote:
| This article puts the blame of macro-level societal trends on
| individuals and takes zero material factors into account.
|
| "Norms were loosened around being an absentee father. So more men
| took the option."
|
| No source is provided. Just an opinion. It's pretty clear that
| anyone with this kind of opinion about "societal norms" and
| pressures has a pretty myopic view of history that doesn't go
| back before the 1950s, or an extremely sanitized view of history.
| It couldn't possibly be because of increasingly bleak outlook for
| the children of the working-class or a failed war on drugs or any
| number of actual tangible things other than "people are being
| degenerates"
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I think there are quite a few alternative explanations for the
| data cited in the article than the ones the author proposes:
|
| > "Today, one in six American men between the ages of 25 and 54
| are unemployed or out of the workforce altogether: about 10
| million men. This number has more than doubled since the 1970s."
|
| We have this place in the USA called "The Rust Belt" which was
| once a dynamic and active manufacturing center providing millions
| of well-paid jobs for these now unemployed American men.
| California once had a world-class electronics manufacturing
| industry (and a garment manufacturing industry) that provided
| hundreds of thousands of such jobs. Under the rubric of
| neoliberal globalization, those jobs were shipped out to Mexico,
| China, Indonesia, India and other low-wage centers, and the huge
| cut in labor costs went right into the pockets of a small
| fraction of now-extremely wealthy Americans. Why neglect that
| phenomenon?
|
| > "Over the past half-century, the number of men per capita
| behind bars has more than quadrupled."
|
| Again, we have a robust alternative explanation: the explosion in
| incarceration under the War on Drugs program launched by Nixon in
| the early 1970s and continued and amplified by successive
| Democratic and Republican administrations. This resulted in the
| explosive growth of the quite profitable private prison complex
| (which did not exist before the 1970s), and of course enforcement
| was highly skewed towards poor and minority groups. These groups
| were far more likely to smoke crack on the street corner than to
| snort cocaine in private clubs, and a 100-wt of cocaine powder
| was considered equivalent to a 1-wt of crack crystal in
| sentencing.
|
| So if the author wants solutions to these problems, why not
| promote rewriting domestic and international law to exert
| significant penalties on corporations who outsource manufacturing
| overseas, and also end the War on Drugs by eliminating
| incarceration for possession of drugs, and instead focus on a
| public education approach emphasizing the benefits of getting off
| drugs and alcohol?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >This resulted in the explosive growth of the quite profitable
| private prison complex (which did not exist before the 1970s)
|
| The government prison complex is orders of magnitude larger.
|
| Welfare is how they keep the poors from rocking the boat.
|
| Government jobs is the same tranquilizer but for people
| slightly better off.
|
| Edit: fine, maybe it's only one order of magnitude bigger.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I think you need to check your data sources.
|
| > "Private prisons in the United States incarcerated 115,428
| people in 2019, representing 8% of the total state and
| federal prison population. Since 2000, the number of people
| housed in private prisons has increased 32% compared to an
| overall rise in the prison population of 3%."
|
| https://nicic.gov/private-prisons-united-states-2021
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| So a single order of magnitude larger
| imtringued wrote:
| Honestly, what if full time jobs (40 hour work weeks) are
| just a form of day care for men? Someone who worked "hard"
| all day and is the bread winner has way more leeway to get
| away with more anti social behavior than someone who is at
| home all day and doing the same thing.
|
| The politics of endless growth are actually just a way to
| keep people busy. No wonder depressions and their massive
| loss of jobs lead to so much instability.
| jelly wrote:
| Those are certainly causal explanations for the data, but once
| those phenomena are here they impact people's expectations.
| Change in expectations is clearly what the author is focusing
| on. For example, the emergence of the rust belt leaves a lot of
| unemployed men - the impacted parts of society won't continue
| to expect the same work ethic and commitment from their men
| 40-50 years later.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| As in, "In the past young men could look to the example of
| their fathers, who had well-paid automotive manufacturing /
| steel mill / electronics assembly jobs that allowed them to
| care for their families and even put a downpayment on a small
| home, but now they have no such examples and no such
| expectations of moving into that kind of position at
| adulthood."
|
| Okay, that's an expectation issue. Why is the author ignoring
| the change in conditions that led to that change in
| expectations?
| hotpotamus wrote:
| From what I've seen, there's an entire industry of
| conservative economists Like Arthur Laffer and Larry Kudlow
| (to name a mere two, there are entire billionaire funded
| thinktanks like AEI dedicated to this) to deny the reality
| of the issues you mention, not unlike scientists paid to
| deny Climate Change or Tobacco's cancer links. And because
| of this, conservatives don't even believe that such issues
| exist.
| ryan93 wrote:
| whats the solution? people in poor countries will work
| 60-70 hrs a week for a fraction of the pay
| rayiner wrote:
| There's also a couple of billion people in Asia who think
| the exact same way as the author about families and
| culture. I've never read Laffer or Kudlow. I'm
| interpreting society through the values of my Bangladeshi
| parents. And they lead me to the same conclusion.
|
| And given the remarkably higher income mobility of Asian
| kids raised in the bottom income compared to white kids,
| I think social liberals are sticking their heads in the
| sand by trying to hand wave away these social trends and
| blaming conservative think tanks.
| ksplicer wrote:
| Be careful when trying to draw conclusions about cultural
| values of different ethnicities within western countries
| with high percentages of recent immigrants. Immigrants in
| general outperform natives in income mobility, and this
| tapers off in later generations. Additionally it's
| difficult to ignore the massive selective bias within
| immigrant populations. Immigrating is very difficult and
| that's positively reflected in basically every way you
| could measure the character of those populations.
| rayiner wrote:
| In America immigration isn't difficult at all--we don't
| have skill based immigration. The Asian kids being raised
| in the bottom 20% of the income distribution are mostly
| here based on chain migration.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| > " _Why is the author ignoring the change in conditions
| that led to that change in expectations?_ "
|
| Because recreating the economic conditions of the '50s-'90s
| would require repeating the global devastation of industry
| and commerce of World War 2 but with the US (again)
| untouched along with reduction of emerging economies back
| to the backward state they were in then. Anytime one sees
| people asking why America can't just bring back to that
| golden (for the US) era, this should be pointed out in no
| uncertain terms. There is no way to put the genie back in
| the bottle.
| Commodore63 wrote:
| Who are these "elites", exactly?
| ozzythecat wrote:
| > People think that if a young guy comes from a disorderly or
| deprived environment, he should be held to low standards. This is
| misguided. He should be held to high standards. Otherwise, he
| will sink to the level of his environment.
|
| In my city, the local government stopped arrests for crimes like
| theft, property damage, and open drug use. For crimes involving
| assault, they would maybe do an arrest, keep the person locked up
| overnight, and then let them go.
|
| The local politicians argued this was right and moral, because
| these people only commit crime because they come from poverty or
| generally don't have "privilege".
|
| Well... it's no longer a desirable place to live. The streets are
| littered with trash, there's a problem of used drug syringes in
| public parks and other public spaces, and there are homicides
| just about every day in the news, or stories of some homeless
| person assaulting some pedestrian. Just the other week, some old
| Asian woman got sucker punched. I think a few weeks before that,
| some drug addict beat a woman with a bat at a public transit
| stop.
|
| I'm a fairly progressive person, overall. But I look around, and
| I'm not sure what country I'm in at times.
|
| And I'm writing this on HN because I think the tech industry is
| part of the problem. When I was at Amazon, we had essentially
| stopped hiring any demographic in engineering roles except for
| Indian nationals. We'd bring them in at slightly below market pay
| (still respectable salaries), but these folks often had 30 days
| to leave the country if they quit Amazon's grueling corporate
| environment. Meanwhile, we didn't give them the right to vote,
| effectively shutting down out from the political process. And,
| for the most part, these folks were willing to work with a toxic
| work culture, since the alternative meant having to uproot their
| families and leave the country, perhaps hoping for permanent
| residency in Canada.
|
| In retrospect, we decided to not hire people born in this
| country. But we also didn't want to give the full rights to the
| people we brought in to substitute them. We knew full and well
| that if it becomes easy for them to switch jobs, we wont be able
| to extract the same work hours from them.
|
| Meanwhile, America's poor are completely forgotten and lost.
| [deleted]
| d23 wrote:
| Do people find this stuff compelling? Rank speculation and
| confident assertion with minimal substantive backing?
|
| I'd find this statement equally compelling (which is to say, not
| at all):
|
| > Since we stopped using horses as a primary means of
| transportation, men's sense of self worth has diminished. Riding
| a horse carried a lot of high status connotations: drive,
| masculinity, towering above the land, and man's domination over
| nature. Now, we drive metal cars, low to the ground, and driving
| one is seen as commonplace. All of men's low sense of self worth
| stems from this.
| azornathogron wrote:
| > Do people find this stuff compelling?
|
| Sure, I mean, it's something to think about. Something I can
| read and consider which parts I agree with or disagree with and
| why that is. It's not a topic I know anything about really,
| beyond my general experience of life, so I don't need to be
| annoyed at things that an expert might recognise as being
| factually incorrect (unlike if I read, eg, a journalist talking
| about software where I'm likely to be frustrated at how many
| things they've got wrong)
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I have definitely observed the "we need to put little johnny in
| safety padding for all things" amongst my friends and their
| kids. My kids were free to roam (within reason) and try things
| most people shudder at. They learned to cook relatively young,
| use power tools (after many safety instructions), stay over at
| friends houses, be around adults talking about adult stuff,
| etc. They both survived and became healthy, happy young adults
| (21 and 19 currently) who weren't afraid to take a chance or
| risk a little pain; they learned that the journey is as
| important as the end of the trail (learning is a reward, and
| you'll hit painful road blocks along the way). I had some
| parents breathless when I told them I let my two 15/13 year
| olds camp in the woods by a lake over a weekend for fishing and
| enjoying nature by themselves, because I trusted them to stay
| out of trouble and use their common sense. I also know they
| snuck along their handheld gaming devices along with them too
| and got a chuckle out of their limited rebelliousness. Learn to
| give kids some slack and they'll set their own goals and not be
| afraid to go for them.
| alexashka wrote:
| The substance is missing, but at least the subject matter is
| interesting.
| em-bee wrote:
| that's one thing i like about riding a bike. i get to look down
| at people in cars ;-)
| le-mark wrote:
| Nicely articulate point, that you for taking the time.
| d23 wrote:
| Thanks. I initially thought "what's the point" but didn't
| have anything better to do.
| zo1 wrote:
| There is a certain class of very smart, articulate and well-
| thinking people. They are very good at arguing and dismissing
| and coming up with all sorts of valid reasons for all sorts
| of ideas. I find they detract the conversation a lot, instead
| of adding substance. I refer to the nebulous group of them as
| the "Intelligentsia", borrowed from others though.
| clearleaf wrote:
| They're never here to give a voice to people who don't have
| one, or to make us look at the material in any different
| way besides complete dismissal. You call them Intelligensia
| but I call them people who suck all the oxygen out of the
| room.
| zo1 wrote:
| Oh I didn't mean the term to be a compliment in any way.
| They're the kind of people that bludgeon normal people's
| debates and arguments with their breadth of knowledge,
| memory, intelligence and sheer typing capacity.
| jpeloquin wrote:
| It's a personal statement from someone with relevant lived
| experience. Exploring others' viewpoints is interesting, if
| only to find out that they exist. The article touches on
| questions that do not currently have an objective answer: Why
| do people do the things they do? Should they be doing something
| different? Science may someday provide an objective
| ("substantive") answer to the first, but it can't choose our
| goals (make value judgments) for us, so articles like this are
| valuable. And social media works a lot better for opinion-based
| than objective discourse because everyone can participate on
| equal footing.
| hans1729 wrote:
| >Do people find this stuff compelling? Rank speculation and
| confident assertion with minimal substantive backing?
|
| For me, it's just playing with models, exploring ideas and
| representations in human-language space, which is fun, complex,
| hard... in that space, which you may call unsubstantial, every
| word references an individual graph. The more my attention
| system interfaces with the representations of such external
| graphs, the deeper my understanding of the world as a whole (or
| our shared models of it) becomes. So yeah, I enjoyed the read,
| Someone spent their energy on that. Don't be so dismissive :-)
| polishdude20 wrote:
| Yeah this horse line is a stretch.
| [deleted]
| fiftyfifty wrote:
| I don't think it's rank speculation, the article itself
| mentions 1 in 6 men are unemployed, and there have been plenty
| of other articles that have been posted on here with statistics
| on the number of men that aren't just unemployed but have no
| interest being employed. College enrollment of men is somewhere
| around 44% of the student body nation wide in the US, the
| number of men in higher education has been dropping for a
| couple of decades now. Girls are significantly outperforming
| boys from Kindergarten to 12 grade nearly everywhere. This
| stuff has been posted on here and discussed many times.
|
| There was another article posted on here before similar to this
| one and I posted my thoughts on the trend from the perspective
| of coaching high school girls and boys sports:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30274979&p=4#30276972
| magicalhippo wrote:
| > Do people find this stuff compelling?
|
| I enjoyed reading it. It's a subject area I've been thinking
| about from time to time.
|
| > Rank speculation and confident assertion with minimal
| substantive backing?
|
| It's an opinion piece, so I read it as such. That is, like
| having a discussion with a buddy at the pub.
| karpierz wrote:
| It's very compelling when it lines up with my worldview in a
| way that makes me feel validated. Then I can absorb it
| uncritically and regurgitate the conclusions to people without
| thinking about the evidence that lead me to the conclusions.
|
| Unfortunately, I'm not a WASP so your 'horse theory' doesn't
| make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > Then I can absorb it uncritically and regurgitate the
| conclusions to people without thinking about the evidence
| that lead me to the conclusions
|
| You forgot the part where I then accuse you of being the one
| blinded by ideology and bias.
| engineeringwoke wrote:
| As stated elsewhere in the thread, northern Europe bucks
| this "trend" that the author sees. The nuclear family is as
| weak as it has ever been, christianity and its ideals are
| an afterthought, and people have never been happier.
| jeffbee wrote:
| No, it is garbage. A huge series of completely unsupported
| claims.
| renewiltord wrote:
| It's like Jared Diamond stuff. Primarily it's hypothesis
| generation. You're not supposed to accept it as true. You're
| supposed to consider it and consequences so you can consider
| "If this is true, what else would one conclude? Do those
| conclusions affect something I care about meaningfully? If so,
| how can I establish the truth?"
|
| They're risky though because you have to actively discard the
| priors you temporarily held afterwards or you'll go around
| thinking that "I read an article that said".
| jollybean wrote:
| Honestly, that kind of makes sense. Riding horses is a bit of a
| masculine thing. I wonder if there's a 'tiny bit' to that. That
| said, I wonder if most men ever even really rode horses very
| often.
| ss108 wrote:
| It's a shit article where the author lightly blames what one
| would generally call "elites" for the stupidity and moral
| ineptitude of lower-class people who avowedly hate elites and
| who make it a point of hating everything the "elites" like
| anyways.
| dc-programmer wrote:
| There's a growing trend of blaming the lower upper-class for
| societal issues. Whether it's due to their excess quantity or
| their moral licentiousness. Yup it's definitely them and not
| the people who control the levers of power
| ensan wrote:
| "the stupidity and moral ineptitude of lower-class people who
| avowedly hate elites"
|
| I have never encountered an individual who claims to hate the
| "elite". And I for one will not complain if someone hates a
| person who holds your classist views.
|
| And what do you mean by "elite" anyways? If people dislike
| those in the position of authority, especially politicians,
| they generally have very good reasons for that. To quote from
| the article,
|
| "Today, one in six American men between the ages of 25 and 54
| are unemployed or out of the workforce altogether: about 10
| million men. This number has more than doubled since the
| 1970s."
| 88913527 wrote:
| I haven't encountered these individuals either, but they
| certainly exist. Class barriers are often considered in the
| abstract, but when it comes to physical manifestations of
| these differences, it can be raw and visceral. One
| photograph that stuck with me was the "eat the rich" [0]
| spray painted in Beverly Hills park during the early Covid
| protests.
|
| [0]: https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/06/15/16/29633080-84
| 22685-...
| cercatrova wrote:
| > _I have never encountered an individual who claims to
| hate the "elite"._
|
| Go on reddit, the refrains of "eat the rich" are quite
| common. People there hate the rich and the elite.
|
| That being said, poor people are not "stupid" or have
| "moral ineptitude." They're just _poor_ , something that
| those who have never been poor will not understand. It's a
| victim blaming mentality.
| ss108 wrote:
| "I have never encountered an individual who claims to hate
| the 'elite'"
|
| I don't know what to tell you there. Go talk to more
| individuals? Go read some right-wing propaganda (e.g.
| almost anything that comes out Josh Hawley's mouth, or
| certain off-bench remarks from Justices Alito and Thomas--
| and yes, all of these individuals are also "elite", but
| because their views are in the minority among elites, they
| can't like they aren't "elite" and rail against the other
| elites).
|
| Go see who likes them, how it plays with that base, and see
| also how it plays with the far-left camp (e.g. Bernie, who
| I generally like but who has a lot wrong, and AOC) too,
| though they may use different language. It's a pretty
| popular meme (I wouldn't call it worthy of being labeled an
| "idea") among certain segments of the population, sometimes
| for different reasons.
|
| "And what do you mean by 'elite' anyways? If people dislike
| those in the position of authority, especially politicians,
| they generally have very good reasons for that."
|
| I was not thinking of politicians, but, fwiw, I would say
| blind/reflexive hatred of politicians is a prime example of
| a kind of idiotic and adolescent trend in American culture
| to just hate traditional authority figures.
|
| There are probably plenty of good reasons to hate them,
| sure, but ask people who say things like "oh yeah they're
| all corrupt" how they know that, what evidence they have,
| whether they can list the past several major corruption
| scandals, how corruption here compares to other countries,
| etc, and they can't do it at all.
| ensan wrote:
| As you said, Hawley (Stanford and Yale alumni), JD Vance
| (Yale alumni), even Trump (from a wealthy family and Penn
| alumni) are all political elites but also quite popular
| with the right-wingers. So it's not really about hating
| the elite, unless by the elite you means a specific
| subset of Democrat politicians and activists.
|
| How many people would object to being operated on by a
| prominent Harvard surgeon because that person is part of
| the elite?
|
| "oh yeah they're all corrupt"
|
| To be clear, I believe that the Harvard and Yale alumni
| and the other political elites who planned & supported
| the many coups of the 20th century, started the Iraq war
| (Bush admin), bombed Libya (Obama) into poverty, etc. are
| all corrupt and deserve our contempt. It does not have
| anything to do with corruption scandals either because
| it's a structural problem where politicians have to cozy
| up to the defense and oil industries among other to
| advance their careers and get paid.
| bannedbybros wrote:
| alex_young wrote:
| > _Children living with both biological parents_
|
| > _Affluent families in 1960: 95%_ > _Working class families in
| 1960: 95%_
|
| > _Affluent families in 2005: 85%_ > _Working class families in
| 2005: 30%_
|
| Ok. Maybe that has something to do with this:
|
| _More than six out of every ten American households (64.7%) in
| the bottom fifth of households by income had no earners in 2020.
| In contrast, only 4.5% of the households in the top fifth of
| households had no earners last year, providing more evidence of
| the strong relationship between average household income and
| income earners per household._
|
| https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/explaining-us-income-inequali...
| colechristensen wrote:
| >bottom fifth of households by income had no earners in 2020
|
| Can we not use covid era numbers?
|
| A whole bunch of people _were earning more money_ by not
| working during and taking unemployment during covid. You can 't
| make social conclusions about economics during those distorted
| times.
| alex_young wrote:
| Ok here's the 2019 number: 60.8%.
|
| https://www2.census.gov/programs-
| surveys/cps/tables/hinc-05/...
| waynesonfire wrote:
| Exactly what jordan peterson talks about. Responsibility. And the
| hell that emerges when this is abandoned.
| philip1209 wrote:
| "Alienated children in the suburbs and bored housewives in the
| homes need to experience flow. If they cannot get it, they will
| find substitutes in the form of escape."
|
| Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in the book Beyond Boredom and
| Anxiety: Experiencing Flow in Work and Play
| blinkingled wrote:
| > basic general principle that men will do whatever is required
| in order to obtain sex, and perhaps not a great deal more. (One
| of us characterized this in a previous work as, 'If women would
| stop sleeping with jerks, men would stop being jerks.')
|
| This makes it sound like it is just men who need sex and have to
| do things to get it. One would think that everybody needs sex and
| thus women need it too. And it would stand to reason that the
| less fortunate women would need sex and be not able to get it
| easily and thus have to resort to sleeping with jerks and raising
| kids as a single mother.
|
| So just saying women should stop sleeping with jerks is not
| really a practical thing. If anything good men should be expected
| to sleep with not so fortunate women to cut the jerks out of the
| equation ;)
|
| Kidding aside this is a very complex problem and the article
| trivializes it - education, assistance to kids in
| need(mental/physical health, financial, foster care), providing
| compatible opportunities and then setting expectations will make
| a dent in this problem. And then there are just incompatible
| people doing stupid things that should be left to their devices
| and outcomes - there is no fixing willful idiocy. But what social
| policies need to do is provide a way out for anyone who wants it.
| nikanj wrote:
| But do women have to do things to get sex? Not high-quality,
| eligible-bachelor sex, but just sex in general?
| floodle wrote:
| I think the typical lens is that women are trying to avoid
| the costs associated with casual sex. Traditionally women
| paid the lion's share of costs: shame, isolation, the
| financial and physical burdens of an unwanted child, etc.
| ratww wrote:
| What does "less fortunate women" mean specifically? Looks?
| Desirability? That assumption would mean that the group of
| "more fortunate" women don't really have problem with jerks,
| which I don't really see as being true.
| blinkingled wrote:
| Yes, many things play into who is desirable but essentially
| physical characteristics, skin color whatever else society
| influences upon you as being desirable. More fortunate women
| do obviously have problem with jerks and some of them may
| have a preference even but the difference is that they have
| options that the less fortunate ones don't or at least not to
| the same extent.
|
| The single black mother problem is illustrative of what I am
| trying to say here. (Not making any generalizations or making
| the case that they are unattractive but merely pointing out
| that number of complicated reasons including being perceived
| as less desirable contribute towards the overall problem.)
| solenoidalslide wrote:
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