I’ve been noticing a number of similar articles on HN recently. Exploring why men aren’t interested in working seems to be in vogue.
I just hate office life anymore. "Jobs" are passe, IMO. I'm burned out on it after 25 years, countless lines of code, and hours of effort having been expropriated from me. I'm tired of how hard it is to change specialties; not because I'm not smart enough, but because I don't have the time because I'm expected to fucking work all the time.
I've had a few payouts from tech, but nothing to retire on for life. There's a serious inequity in working at an office when I've doing 40+ wks for years, struggled to get by a lot it, but the guy one level up the org char rolls in with his new Vette.
Women seem to find it novel, since they haven't historically had access. So let em at it.
Do we NEED this many people "working" on whatever the "free market" demands (which is usually just code for "within the highly moderated financial system").
I doubt it. IMO, the only economic output that society as a whole should be concerned with is education, healthcare, and the infra that enables those efforts.
The rest is a farce. Consumption driven avarice.
At least they do not destroy the environment, producing something that has no real value, speeding up a society heading for a crash.
The major media and political narratives are focusing on the rights of women, the rights of trans folks, the rights of minorities, and the rights of immigrants. They are all well and good, but we should equally talk about the responsibility of our well-represented young white males to bear up under some responsibility and push themselves to improve their country. Responsibility to provide and protect is a very masculine idea, and if we fed ourselves an equal diet of responsibility as we do rights & freedoms, the young men of today might be a lot more energetic and engaged.
I also venture that it has something to do with the sharp rise in atheism. Christianity espouses responsibility. Carry your cross and accept suffering without malice. Atheism says that the world is meaningless, we were created from entropy. One of those belief systems might work better for getting young guys out of the house!
Build up atheist straw men much? You know what you know if I tell you I am an atheist? You only know I lack belief in deities (likely yours, whatever they may be, but no different than another deist in that they lack believe in all the other dieties as you, but they believe in N that you don't). Thats it, it doesn't tell you anything about what I find meaningless or meaningful, or that we believe we were created from entropy. That is pure projection on your part, and entirely without merit.
So basically you're saying that as an atheist I have no idea what you're up to... Right, because you're not up to _anything_ that other atheists are up to. You're a heterogeneous mix of feelings and ideas that are mostly based in Western values but are held together loosely. I can look at a devout Christian and know that he's guided by his faith to taking up hard tasks and completing them diligently as part of his commitment to his faith.
How can a lack of belief espouse anything? Atheism isn't a religion. The rest of your post seems to lack that fundamental understanding.
> I certainly cannot say that they all think the world has a deep meaning that they're directly involved in.
You also can't claim the converse, as noted atheism is a lack in belief systems, not a belief system unto itself. You're attacking straw men versions of atheists. Its like asking how many amps a battery has, or how many miles of work you can get from a gallon of gas. Without context the statements make no coherent sense.
I'll stop posting on such things here in general, just annoying when at category has things attached to it that are mostly non sequitur. Like saying auto mechanics don't believe in running or something, its a weird thing to do.
Then there is atheism which basically means follow nothing, do what you wish, which might mean that you're a great person nonetheless.
Just as it would be wrong of me to say "All deists believe in the same god, that is why they don't take belief in different dieties seriously", its wrong to attach belief in responsibiliity to a category like atheism.
An example of the disparate groups that qualify as atheists: - Antitheists - Nihilists - Some Agnostics - Some Buddhists - Some Stoics
Etc....
How you arrive at "atheism which basically means follow nothing" being attached to a category is beyond my ability to understand.
The truth is that it's easy to say something needs improvement, but it's not easy to take the 10 years studying the problem to deeply understand the solution, and even a partial understanding of possible workable solutions is something neither of us have, because we're spending our week nights wasting time in one way or another instead of paying sharp, _sharp_ attention to the studies and data collected now and in the past to broaden and deepen our insights.
Also you mention that my advice boils down to "shut up and get a job" which is really fantastic advice for most people, because even getting a job carrying 2x4s up scaffolding all day would be so damn tough and tiring that you'd come out of it healthier, persistent, and basically a terminator capable of any hard, physical labour. A good skill! And that skill carries with it an appreciation of the physically gentle computer work we all do, thus making your future tech career more enjoyable.
I think I've made a pretty good counter argument here but feel free to rebuke it.