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Comment by pferde | Hacker News Reader

The world at large doesn't care what you need, only what you can offer. Realizing this (and acting on it) would help vast majority of these "socially excluded young men" to be included instead.

There is an excellent article detailing the idea here: https://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-y...

I wish it was mandatory reading for all youth.

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> The world at large doesn't care what you need, only what you can offer. Realizing this (and acting on it) would help vast majority of these "socially excluded young men" to be included instead.

Is this fundamentally different than telling women that since most of the world only values them as property, that accepting this fact would help oppressed women feel more comfortable with their positions in life?

Maybe you think you're doing people a favour by telling them a harsh truth about the reality they currently face, but here we're talking about how the world ought to be because of the pathologies caused by our reality. A great quote comes to mind:

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

You're talking at cross purposes. You are talking about how you think the world ought to be, and the person you're responding to is talking about how the world is. They're fundamentally different conversations, and it's not particularly useful to mix them, especially in such a critical manner.

not quite. OP described how the world "is" (according to their particular worldview, which is subject to their biases as everyone's worldview is) and then prescribing what one ought to do in the world. The person responding is cautioning readers to consider what fitting in really means if the thing you're fitting into is profoundly malformed.

> You're talking at cross purposes. You are talking about how you think the world ought to be, and the person you're responding to is talking about how the world is.

This whole thread is about a pathology of the modern world that is harming a large segment of the population. The original poster responded to this argument by saying, "well, that's just how the world is", and further added that all young men ought to be taught this same view, further reinforcing it.

I think my post properly addresses the OP's response in this context.

"What you can offer" is not the same as "what others think you can offer". So it is absolutely different.

Not really, because you can do quite well based on what others think you can offer and not what you actually offer. So we're back to square one and there is no meaningful difference.

That makes absolutely no sense. You are saying that because person A offers nothing yet succeeds, person B is unable to succeed whether or not people think he offers anything.

As long as you can succeed in spite of what other think you can offer, they are not the same.

Nice try on changing the goalposts. Success is not the value being compared, so your argument is immaterial. I had thought you were making a different argument in my last reply.

What is the value being compared?

"only women, children, and dogs get loved unconditionally" --Chris Rock

Perhaps it might also help if the media etc. stopped acting as if being born male (particularly white and male) is some kind of horrendous original sin?

What circles do you move in that this is considered to be the case?

To me it sounds like a Fox news viewer complaining about caravans of Muslims coming across the Mexican border to join MS-13.

It says more about your choices in what media sources to use to get a hit of anger than it does about objective reality.

I mean it sounds like a white nationalist talking point, but it also sounds like you believe it.

The media etc. is absolutely awash with it, to the point where I pretty much consider dismissals of the evidence of my own eyes as gaslighting. I've given up on all contemporary TV and film because the virtue signalling is obnoxious and incessant.

And the response to someone pointing it out is usually accusations of racism, misogyny etc. I'd say this pretty much describes your response to me...

Well, here's another white male from North America who has lived here for many decades but who lives in a very different world from you. I urge you to consider dispassionately how this could be. Don't dismiss it immediately as "virtue signaling" or "gaslighting". Assume that I am sincere in my beliefs and accurate in my observations -- maybe you are accurate as well; I have observed North America and different times and places. Now consider how it is that you and I perceive the same place so differently.

You seem determined to play the role of a victim. No one has accused you of anything but perhaps picking bad media sources. "The media" is not a monolith and you've failed to provide even one piece of evidence for your assertion.

Make of this what you will:

https://www.salon.com/2015/12/22/white_men_must_be_stopped_t...

https://archive.fo/lmHPC

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/don-lemon-terror-threat/

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2018/06/10/why_can039t_we_... (Sorry, couldn't find something without a paywall)

https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/26/politics/michael-moore-2016-e...

https://kcjohnson.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/nungesser-comp...

Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w31B49W03io and see how many times the phrase "uneducated white men" is said with a sneer.

https://www.chicagoreporter.com/the-us-white-majority-will-s...

https://lithub.com/do-we-even-need-men/

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/07/the-end...

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/nov/17/row-after-...

My media bubble is WSJ, NYT, WaPo, NPR, Fox, and Al Jazeera (but I rarely read opinion pieces). None of these behave the way you suggested. Except that Fox has some of their opinion (non journalist) people that blame the media of such behavior.

As a white male living in North America, I've never felt the way you're describing. Consider that perhaps the point these sources are trying to make is a little more subtle than: "white man bad". On the other hand, read some accounts[1] of how ethnic minorities (even affluent ones) are treated every day. That's someone actually being treated as if the circumstances of their birth are an original sin.

[1] https://www.latimes.com/opinion/livable-city/la-oe-brown-rac...

No. None of the media I partake in makes me feel that way at all. Can you point to mass examples of this?

UK media is awash with it.

I'm in the US. I don't see it in the US. Can you point to examples of this? UK specific is fine. Note, you keep repeating "the media" and have yet to produce the evidence to support this. I know you can't, but I'm giving you the opportunity to present it.

The best you've been able to do is point out where media doesn't make males being born a sin (so, a counter-point to what you are saying).

> The world at large doesn't care what you need, only what you can offer.

That in a nutshell is what Nietzsche's master vs. slave morality dichotomy is about.

Master morality is concerned with the welfare of others and an individual's impact on the world. Slave morality is about oneself and an individual's own well-being.

According to Nietzsche both have their place and cultural history has always been defined by a struggle between them.

You got it exactly backwards, my guy. Master Morality is about pride and power; slave morality is kindness, simpathy, etcetera

Nietzsche was also firmly in the master camp. Said so himself many times on many books

Now me? I agree with Mr Nietzsche completely

Can you recommend a summarising read up on this?

This article IMO describes the concepts and what they entail pretty well: https://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/the-master-and-slave-m...

But we teach kids reading, writing and maths because it prepares them for life, and left on their own, kids would just play all day. By the same token we shouldn't leave kids to figure that shit out themselves, but help them get there..

...hence the last sentence in my above post.

In some places, if you leave your kid's sex education to the state, they get abstinence-only sex ed - because there are people who genuinely believe that stuff even though it's wrong.

There's a risk that, if you ask 'we' to teach this stuff, you're going to get a substantially watered-down message compared to the one in that article - perhaps even one that reverses it. After all, I doubt the "it's what's on the inside that counts" message the article disagrees with would've become so widespread if it didn't resonate with some people.

But leaving everyone to raise their kids as they see fit can be unfair to the kids. If public education might let your kids down, learn what it's teaching them. If what they're getting is crap, demand accuracy. They can't hide what they're teaching. If you agitate for science-based education for your kids other kids will get it too and your kids don't have to grow up with neighbors whose parents passively allowed their kids to grow up with a crappy education.

It's not wrong. There is the standard for scientific proof, and then there is the standard for mathematical proof. If you abstain from sex, then you will not catch a disease while having sex. It's simple and reliable logic. It's more math than science. The conclusion is formally correct, and p=0 without p-hacking.

I think you re missing the point about what exclusion is. It's the rejection of what you can offer rather than an expression of neediness.

Yes, sometimes it's like that (being rejected based on race, religion, etc.), and it's sad.

But most of these "excluded young men prone to radicalization" are really being rejected because they never bothered to actually offer something meaningful to the society that is rejecting them.

That's an extreme generalization. In most cases these people work, sometimes hard, yet they feel excluded because either their values don't align with the society they live in, or the society is outight racist. And it's the ones who work (in immigrants receiving welfare, typically the men) who become extremists.

If their values do not align with the society they live in, then they are not offering something the society wants. I am not saying this as a judgment, but as an objective fact.

If the society is racist, that's a different matter altogether, and I already covered that case in my above comment. I do not claim that this "be a person that has something to offer" idea is a panacea to solve everything. But it does (or rather, would) solve many cases of social exclusion.

Just look at the despicable (and yes, now I am judging) "Incel" subculture in the USA. Sure, some of them might have genuine mental issues, but there is a lot of loafers and layabouts who prefer to pose as victims instead of doing something positive.

Ah yes the Incel link, which i think is totally unproven yet i am sure "pundits" will be sure that it exists. This study is about immigrants in europe, which is better defined, and who are excluded in more specific ways (including celibacy i would guess in some cases). Plus i don't think calling anyone with emotional problems (which are always ugly and always express themselves as ugly) is right. You probably wouldn't do the same if they were women either - in fact lots of women say bad things about men too. Neither is despicable , calling someone despicable is a cop-out and uncharitable.

Whatever one's theory for why atomization occurs, it can't simply be that people aren't trying hard enough. That doesn't take into account other forces that shape their lives. The right will generally talk about institutional failure and the collapse of a common culture, the left might talk about the community-destroying tendencies of capitalism, but the fact remains that people are atomized.

I also think you're mixing up cause and effect. I was the alienated guy in my early 20s--depressed, underemployed, angry all the time, flirting with alcoholism. I'm a programmer now, married, and working somewhere I really love. The acceptance came first, though, not the usefulness. A few key people in my life accepted me for who I was, not my utility.

That isn't to say it's always beyond the person's control, of course. But chalking it all up to being individually deficient seems insufficient to me.

I think there is a lot of truth to that article, but there are also things that it is missing.

In my experience, offering value to society is not rewarded unless you also have the social skills necessary to capture the rewards. The problem is that, at least in the United States, there are vanishingly few resources for learning those skills.

This is exasperated by the fact that in many cases the "socially excluded young men" are already emotionally/spiritually exhausted by their past attempts to provide value to society.

In western society we force our youth into pursuing "employable" roles. Anything expressive through the arts or craftsmanship is risky and you'll be lucky to have support from someone close. This doesn't seem to be the case for middle-class families that are not always waiting on next months pay check.

If the world “doesn’t care for what I need” it then becomes a viable alternative to try and change/influence said world so that it does indeed start to care. Granted, one social outcast guy trying to change the world all by himself won’t do much, but once several guys like him congregate in greater numbers (through the Internet, let’s say) then things start to change. And let’s not forget that major social movements of the present world were started by people for whom the world as they knew it didn’t care that much: Christianity was mostly started by Paul, a lowly employee from a fringe Roman province, while 20th century communism was only implemented because of Lenin, a low-key intellectual from a fringe-European - fringe-Asian country which had just started modernizing.

Of course. And then, when a new world order is established, and there is a new crop of "alpha" people on the top, you have a new crop of outcasts. And the cycle continues.

Isn't it better to make it easier for current crop of outcasts by explaining how to be useful members of society?

> Isn't it better to make it easier for current crop of outcasts by explaining how to be useful members of society?

Aren't outcasts by definition people whom other people don't want to associate with? If yes, then how would explaining work?

Online, probably. That is already where the only real discussions about sex and other politically unacceptable discussions take place.

I've never seen that article before, excellent read!

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