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Comment by godmodus | Hacker News Reader

I disagree with the title and message with its overall sentiment.

Yes, old school partnerships are dying, but that doesn't make males more disposable.

If anything,it gives men and women more options and opens up our society to fine tuning. (effects of large scale single momhood/dadhood, competetive job markets and novel family and supporting social structures) the old was nice, but if a single unit can function and achieve what a complex unit used to, wed all benefit. Supposing the experiment doesn't end in failure and twist society. Though even if it does, we'll self correct. After all, nature still rules us.

It's a culture of work hard, fuck-young and marry-old(er) for partnership for the coming future, we'll see where that takes us.

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That doesn't take into account the fact that (through no fault of their own, and meriting no shame), single parents are pretty systematically worse statistically than bioparents in a nuclear household. Take into account the impact of parental "abandonment" on the child, which is traumatic regardless of whether the abandonment was voluntary or not, and regardless of whether it's one parent no longer seeing a child at all, or the other parent seeing the child less because she has to work harder to provide; both count as "abandonment" emotionally, and can be traumatizing.

Single-parent families, step-families all require better parenting, management, and communication skills, since they're more complex, and these parents aren't more skilled than the average, with predictable consequences.

Check the statistics on "fatherless" households, children of single mothers perform worse on every single metric. Worse academically, commit more crime (and much more rape), more runaways, more addictions, the list goes on.

> Yes, old school partnerships are dying, but that doesn't make males more disposable.

Implies that "old school partnerships" are dying, but being replaced by something new. That's not the case. It's not a case of old-thing-evolving-into-a-new-thing. It isn't being replaced by anything, just being destroyed. I'll bet you single mothers are much less happy than married women, especially in their 50s and 60s, not to mention the increased likelihood of being abused by dates, strings of failed relationships, increased stress, and loneliness.

tbh you're preaching to the choir here, i believe in 2-parent models for the sake of spending more time with the child and nurturing it better.

that said, ill add that single parents of the past are often a result of a broken house hold. the single parents of the future will do so by choice, this will give rise to interesting dynamics, i think.

it isn;t replaced by anything right now, but crises leads to break through, we might/(most likely will?) deal with is, as nature would have us, by either coming up with a new paradigm, or breaking then reverting to (a better?) version of the old.

maybe im an optimist, but ive seen so much shit, and the world is knee deep in shit these days that i need to believe that we'll make it.

to deal with this issue i personally would suggest community (kibutz style?) child care, which ironically echoes a communist tint, to deal with time-not-spent with children. top that with corporate/workplace restructuring (ala sweden with mandatory father-time as well as mandatory mom-time off for birth) and we'd be on our way.

one issue i do see is old age and loneliness. i see so many lonely old people here in europe. for now, females are growing older and finding it more difficult to find a partner after choosing not to marry. the men are reluctant to take an older woman as a partner, and while i understand hypergamy, im not sure i understand why the older men are not taking mid-30-smth women as partners.

also, i dont understand why can't couples marry and support each other's careers and just have kids later. is it so unnatural? it might boil down to the socioeconomics of hypergamy, which is a thought that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, to think that our females are "programmed" as such is no comforting notion.

The title is a simple quantifiable assertion taken directly from the conclusion of the research [0] while your comment is just an opinion. I encourage you to read the conclusion to the paper and its supporting analysis - and then to argue with the data, or to at least propose something falsifiable.

[0] http://www.nber.org.sci-hub.cc/papers/w23173.pdf

Wow, I just looked at the title of the paper, and it's the opposite of the HN title: one is about marriage (yes, of course jobs matter a lot), the other is about relationships. Number of married years per person is declining, number of relationships without babies are increasing.

Honestly on reading the article I thought it was quite clear this was about marriage.

> Supposing the experiment doesn't end in failure and twist society. Though even if it does, we'll self correct. After all, nature still rules us.

Well that's the problem, isn't it? The self-correction is for nature to destroy us so that something else can take our place.

It's completely possible for births to be below the population replacement rate until the people die out. It already is in first world countries save for immigration, and that can't save you if the third world industrializes and automates to the point they're in the same situation.

If we don't want that to happen we may have to start finding ways to enable people to marry and have more children.

Wait, what? In a world where the population keeps increasing, automation is and will continue to drive unemployment, and environmental destruction is rampant... you're concerned that we're going to die out for lack of breeding?

> In a world where the population keeps increasing, automation is and will continue to drive unemployment, and environmental destruction is rampant... you're concerned that we're going to die out for lack of breeding?

Neither unemployment nor environmental destruction is incompatible with population decline.

The unemployment rate is independent of the population size, because fewer people means less demand which means proportionally fewer jobs.

And unchecked evil corporations can perfectly well automate environmental destruction and carry it out with a minimum number of people.

You might want to look at specifically _where_ the population keeps increasing. It isn't in the West where we have modern social values but rather, um, less enlightened places. The United States is currently below replacement birth rate and Japan dramatically so.

A culture and society which devalues having children and raising them properly, even as a side effect of a nobler purpose, is one that will die out and be replaced with another.

I don't see how factory jobs vanishing give men more options. Yes, for the lucky few who still have marketable jobs that aren't subsidized by the public sector, they have more money and options. For the vast majority of men, the job market is a much more brutal place than it was before with a lot fewer actual options.

I understand your argument, but it assumes humans don't adapt.

So what if the coal mines close down?

We dont live in aculture where needs stop evolving. Where there's a need, there's industry of some sort.

Humans brains adapt, especially generationally.

I dont see Germany suffering any detrimental consequences of the modern workplace (where I am right now) and infact it's flourishing.

That Said, the education system and the industrial system works close together here, and it's a better system than most. So countries need to pitch in to the effort if educating it's populace for modern day jobs

Germany is one of the few countries that has kept a manufacturing base and a manufacturing based workforce.

Because Germany has protectionist tariffs similar to those Trump wants to implement. E.g it is not cheaper to outsource plants to Mexico and import BMW back to Germany.

Eastern European states fill that role in the EU, though I'm not sure how great the scale of that is.

Exactly - the scale is different. And where they can, jobs have already migrated from Germany

Partly because the German currency is severely undervalued for its economy (because it's held down by the other eurozone countries), favoring exports. In a sense, the other eurozone countries are subsidizing German exports. If the euro went away, and Germany switched back to the Mark, exports would be corrected downwards, and jobs would leave since Made in Germany wouldn't be profitable anymore.

> So what if the coal mines close down?

Then people need to get a very good education to get one of the new jobs. Because the old jobs are dying out, those you could get into with little education.

The problem for men? That boys fare far worse in school than girls. This gets rarely addressed, e.g. the vast difference in reading comprehension.

Boys then should just adapt? Well, whenever women seem to have a disadvantage (the whole MINT-discussion), society is supposed to fix it. Whenever men have problems, they remain their individual problems, and it's definitely their fault. No systemic forces here to be seen, move along everybody.

A last comment about Germany: The lack of jobs for unskilled workers is definitely a huge problem. It makes it incredibly difficult to integrate everybody with a, shall we say, sub-par education. Almost half of the Turkish hailing migrants in Berlin are unemployed. 75 % of them did not graduate from secondary school.

>Almost half of the Turkish hailing migrants in Berlin are unemployed. 75 % of them did not graduate from secondary school.

Wow, this is staggering. Do you remember where you saw those figures? (I don't doubt them, I just want to quote them in other discussions.)

Unfortunately it's mainly German sources. I hope Google Translate can help here. They may also report different numbers, depending on who would be included in "Turkish migrants". Some address Turkish citizens (who have a work permit in Germany), some address German citizens of Turkish descent.

The numbers I used are from this article: https://www.taz.de/!5176721/

> 75 Prozent der Migranten türkischer Herkunft haben keinen Schulabschluss, fast jeder zweite ist arbeitslos.

> 75 % of migrants of Turkish descent do not graduate from school, almost every second is unemployed.

It's from 2008. Upon reflection I would expect that the situation is not as dire anymore, due to Germany's positive economic development.

In any case, the trend in Germany hints towards a dire situation in any case (2009): http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/immigration-surv...

> Some 30 percent of Turkish immigrants and their children don't have a school leaving certificate, and only 14 percent do their Abitur, as the degree from Germany's top-level high schools is called -- that's half the average of the German population.

This article from 2016 references a report from the Federal Statistical Office of Germany. It states that over 40 % of the Turkish immigrants and their children only achieve a very basic school leaving certificate ("Hauptschulabschluss"). With this type of certificate, it is difficult in Germany to even get into a vocational school. Also, over 1/3 of the Turkish immigrants are poor: They earn less that 60 % of the mean income.

https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article155700942/Warum-so-vie...

https://www.destatis.de/DE/Publikationen/Datenreport/Datenre...

Out of the 3 million Turkish migrants in Germany, 275,000 have received unemployment benefits in 2015. Only people actively seeking employment are eligible for those benefits. I could not find the absolute number for Germany for this population. But for the whole of Germany, we have 39 million workers, out of a population of over 80 million. The Turkish migrants tend to be younger, so a larger percentage does not belong to the workforce yet.

I would therefore assume that the unemployment rate is around 20 % for Turkish migrants in Germany, and considerably higher in Berlin, due to the "special" economic status of Berlin as a whole. The article below is from 2001 and has them at 42 %:

http://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/tuerken-in-berlin-beruf-ar...

Summing up, while the specific numbers should be subject to scrutiny, the trend remains abysmal.

I see, thanks for the detailed response.

> Well, whenever women seem to have a disadvantage (the whole MINT-discussion), society is supposed to fix it.

What does MINT refer to?

Oh sorry, that's German for STEM. It's math, information science, natural science, and technology (referring to engineering).

boys suck at school not because boys are bad at school, it's because school sucks and is today fine tuned for women.

there's a distinct need to revise all schooling before it's too late, tbfh. the men of old were very well educated, those who could get an education. but it was a harsh education, so the world today isn't willing to deal with it.

if boys sucked so much at reading and writing, we wouldn't have had all those male authors or male scientists. the system's whacked now, and it'll crash and crumble before it's fixed, especially in germany with their switch to MBAs, worsening school systems, and neglect of young boys (have nothing against trying to push women forward, just don't forget the boys)

>> Where there's a need, there's industry of some sort.

Have you ever talked to people who live in the projects? They have little hope. There is no "industry of some sort".

That's a different issue all together. The very rich and the very poor are a unique clustering, but not at all fixed. Generationally, they're not stuck. There is movement in those clusters.

I view these two minorities as a result of governmental neglect,corruption or/and policy.

Can you argue about how the topic at hand affects them? Maybe I don't follow your argument well enough.

As you said, they adapt "generationally".

If we assume that means the next generation adapts, what's the current one to do with its remaining 40-60 years, except for voting for Trump?

well, that's a very interesting problem to solve, isn't it :>

Adaptation can take a while (particularly if its generational). Many things have to go right for it to happen smoothly. While society and people are adapting, there will likely be many workers who are unable/unwilling to re-skill to compete in other job markets. Many people will be without work as those markets will become highly competitive. They will also likely require years of university, increasing the economic load on society.

You seem to have a lot of faith in education systems in a capitalist environment. My own observations is that universities are just enrolling students in courses regardless of there being jobs available in those fields or not - as long as they are making a profit. I doubt governments can move fast enough to develop proper education systems to educate the population for modern day jobs.

The government sticking its nose in this process (among other things via student loans, leading to the escalating price of university education) is one of the things perverting the pricing signal wrt education. I have little faith in a good outcome even if (maybe especially if) governments "move fast" in this space.

The majority of the population opting out of traditional higher-ed would be a wholesale benefit to the current state of affairs, imo, as it would allow something more suitable to appear.

i do have a lot of faith, but it's in education and the human spirit in general. i don't view capitalism as a thing that'll stick around for long since it's severely predatory and wrecking havoc on the 3rd world. that said im no hippy. we need free enterprise, but we need effective oversight and better resource management, schooling included. right now we're led by blind leaders, but then again, considering this is all natural, this is the /best/ we can do /now/. we'll hopefully do better tomorrow.

systems such as the one switzerland has (tight coupling of industry and education) are not bad at all, but it requires an informed public, and more imprtantly, informed lateral-thinking politicians.

the coming crises will test us, and i believe we'll come out stronger, albeit with a few bruises and some lasting scars.

Wasn't there a bit of a kerfluffle when West Germany was integrating with Eat Germany?

"Generationally" is the key word in your comment.

yes, yes it is. i am hopeful for the future, but i do worry for the present.

what do you suggest we do about it? i have a few plans after im done with my studies which include education centers, but ill need to delve deeper into the issue first, something my studies currently don't allow.

It doesn't give men more options. It puts a lot of unexpected pressure on men to adapt.

And adaptation is a real challenge, because it may mean learning completely new technical skills as well as completely new social and political skills as well as being unusually creative and inventive - and most men have to attempt this after a very poor education and little or no mentoring or modelling of the possibilities.

In the past, men could get by fairly passively because the job-market was full of ready-made slots for them. They could turn up and fill a slot and money would start flowing.

Now the slots have to be invented before they can be filled. That immediately disenfranchises the 90% or so of the population who aren't particularly creative or entrepreneurial.

And even if a slot is invented, the odds of lasting success aren't great. Most projects fail, and failure isn't tolerated well.

So we've gone from an open job market with limited selection pressure and relatively easy rewards to a very closed and challenging job market which only works for maybe 5% of the male population - specifically unusually intelligent, creative/inventive, socially connected and/or wealthy, or just plain sociopathic men.

It's a huge, huge change, and I don't think we've even started to see the effects.

Great comment and as the father of two boys, 17 and 15, this has kept me up nights and has put some strain on my relationship with them. While both show some aptitude and modest interest in technology I don't foresee either of them pursuing a technical field.

If we eliminate STEM fields from the set of options, the prospects for young men to earn as past generations seems to be drastically reduced.

There's a real problem that's being tackled by those trials for basic income. We don't live in post war time of plenty. What scares me is thus seeming runaway information inflation and landgrabbing by people who don't rent out or up rent prices top high. People have job.. It's just that we are getting pushed to a corner.

It's not the absence of a job that'll Choke us, it's the pricing of things with ill adapted wages. I'm in IT, but still,I can see trouble down the road thst I'm trying to tackle now.

We do live in interesting times.

What are the options for men who want to have a family/live with their children?

I guess men who just want to have sex might benefit, because they can just sleep with women and then leave, and society takes care of the single moms. Likewise, women can have more sex with varying partners.

The downside is not having a family or having a stressful family life (as a single mom).

And for the absent dads, the state will try to get the money back from them, so their outlook isn't pretty. They'll bend up being poor and lonely.

The main downside is for the children. Believe me, you would not want to be the child of such a man or such a woman.[0] This is worse than lack of iodine, lead in the pipes, or congenital deformities from pregnant drug abuse. It's a societal time-bomb.

[0]: http://www.fathers.com/statistics-and-research/the-consequen...

Some statistics:

> Children living in female headed families with no spouse present had a poverty rate of 47.6 percent, over 4 times the rate in married-couple families.

> The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states, “Fatherless children are at a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse.”

> Children of single-parent homes are more than twice as likely to commit suicide.

> Children age 10 to 17 living with two biological or adoptive parents were significantly less likely to experience sexual assault, child maltreatment, other types of major violence, and non-victimization type of adversity, and were less likely to witness violence in their families compared to peers living in single-parent families and stepfamilies.

The "gender roles" crowd is deeply dogmatic and misguided, and it's having incredible consequences.

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