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Comment by tathougies | Hacker News Reader

The article is long on detail and short on suggestions (which is understandable). However, the suggestions it does make are not obviously going to work. The men illustrated in the article do not seem incapable of work, but rather disinterested. Vocational training isn't going to fix the fact that the government benefits the article cited allows the men to stay at home playing video games all day. Most people (but especially men, given the propensity of the male psyche to become dependent on dopamine) would rather take the short term thrill of continuous dopamine hits provided by video games than working to make a living.

Who can really blame them? For the vast majority of history, the main impetus for men to seek status of any kind is to impress women and provide a legacy for families. As the article mentions, men who are cut off from each of these simply stop participating in the kinds of behavior that make modern society possible. Enabled by the preponderance of easily accessible government money, drugs, etc, these men, lacking any legacy or dependents to speak of, would rather bide their time hedonistically. Some, realizing their situation, choose not to bide their time at all (look at the rise of middle aged male suicides).

Unfortunately, the two causes the article cites (dissolution of family structure and rise of single male households) are unaddressed. This is understandable as even mentioning these problems in high society today would be frowned upon. The article admits this, but, the writer, being part of the same society he's criticizing, falls into the same trap.

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I don't think the two causes listed in the article are actually the causes. I think both are yet another symptom of an underlying problem. I would argue that men doing worse in schooling is likely another symptom of the same issue.

I think that the heart of the issue is that more men nowadays feel that they just don't matter. Not to society nor to anyone else. This leads to a situation where they will simply sacrifice less and try to enjoy more.

So why would men feel that way?

My initial thoughts were that perhaps it is due to the recent demonization of men and the removal of some of their privileges, while the burdens (selective service, unfair family court) remained. While I think that these could be contributing (accelerating) factors, I don't think this is at the heart of the matter. We see similar trends in other countries, where lots of (young) men are essentially checking out from society. Japan is an example of a country where this problem has likely progressed further than in the US. My initial thoughts don't fit, because they couldn't explain why this same process would happen in countries with a pretty different culture from the US.

I'm stumped. Perhaps it's somehow linked to the falling testosterone levels in men that we have observed?

Did cavemen have a conception of worth? Probably nowhere near what we would think of it. I think if you took these men and tossed them on an island with a forest some would wait to die, many, most would start chopping wood just to have something to do. It's better than being bored.

I'm willing to bet very few of these social dropouts just lay in bed like vegetables all day, they're playing games, consuming media, doing something. And unfortunately that has a better, quicker mental payoff than going to work.

I think the problem is that in older societies you didnt have much else to do but work outside of certain hours because of strict social taboos. Work was the fruit of exploiting men's simple behavior of looking for something to keep busy. Now video games and YouTube are accessible all day long as long as you have a computer or phone and internet, which benefits can provide. I sont think there's any complex civilization level social phenomenon, we just gave men something better to do and the means to do it

I think those cavemen would be busy trying to survive and not doing things out of bordem because they have too many real problems to worry about.

What your comment reminded me of was Sebastian Junger's book Tribe. One of the central tenets of that book is that people need to feel valued by their tribe/family/society. Lack of this can lead to mental illness. Possibly manifesting as the type of malaise outlined in the article.

Maybe one way to address this is to collectively start valuing those jobs that we've denoted as "low status" for the last decades. The jobs like plumbers, linemen, etc. that help make society work.

I don't think plumbers, lineman, etc... are universally looked down on by society. Yes there are some people/communities who do, but there are also people who look down on those who have office jobs, or who do creative work (artists, actors, writers).

True, but the trades typically aren’t pushed as a viable option like “higher status” paths. For decades now, I think the system has pushed the “need” to go to college, regardless of after effects (debt, job prospects etc)

It depends on what the community you're from defines as "high status". In some parts of the US, a tradesman who owns their own small business is far more respected than, say, a lawyer or a software engineer.

What about the idea that the passing on of power (wealth, social, political) is happening less as people live longer? It would explain why the problem's more pronounced in Japan (long life expectancy, culture of seniority).

this is a very interesting idea

One thing to consider: passing of power is happening less in the US because there are so many baby boomers, and our economy may be growing more slowly.

> I think that the heart of the issue is that more men nowadays feel that they just don't matter.

Isn't everyone feeling this? Maybe men are feeling the ways that others have felt for a long time?

I agree that the loss of privilege is definitely happening, which is honestly a good thing imo, but I'd tie this back to greater cultural unease about one's economic future more than anything else. Most of the folks I know are in their 30s and don't believe they'll ever retire.

If the system is squeezing every ounce of your labor out and you're only seeing a small return on it, what's keeping you motivated?

> but I'd tie this back to greater cultural unease about one's economic future more than anything else. Most of the folks I know are in their 30s and don't believe they'll ever retire.

>If the system is squeezing every ounce of your labor out and you're only seeing a small return on it, what's keeping you motivated?

But by any metric you choose these things were worse in the past. We didn't have safety nets for the elderly. You worked in a factory and not only were the wages bad but the work was dangerous. I don't see how these variables explain the problem now since they had a worse value in the past.

Wealth owned by the lower and middle class used to be higher. Not always, but certainly we're in a period where wealth inequality is wildly different than it used to be.

In periods of increasing wealth inequality, I'd expect less class mobility and increased anxiety and hopelessness.

Combine that anxiety with climate change, political gridlock, loss of privilege, a sense that retirement will never happen, and generally feeling like your parents generation had it better... I can see why people might check out. All these things seem so systemically inevitable.

> Wealth owned by the lower and middle class used to be higher.

Where? In the US?

Post-WW2 saw the rest of the world blown to bits, and the US and USSR being the only two powers left standing. Incomes shot through the roof for the average USA-ian because everyone else who could have done cheap labor was dead or busy rebuilding.

Pre World Wars there was plenty of deep, deep poverty in the US, and there was much labor unrest (e.g. the Pullman Strike, etc.) because of it.

The dating dynamic changed too. As a man, you will be able to date if you are in the top 20% on height and general attractiveness. It wasn't always like that. In the recent past, you could have a girlfriend if you were average good looking and if you showed your worth. Good grades, good work prospects, etc. as long as you committed to a woman. That doesn't seem to work any more.

Sure it works. Plenty of women are looking for a healthy, devoted, average looking man.

You haven’t tried hard enough. You give women little credit in their ability to sift through useless traits. In fact, most optimize this skill, and are patient. It is important not to delay. The best mates are gone more quickly.

I've heard this oft repeated, but no evidence that dating overall works by the 80-20 rule except for Tinder, which hardly represents the dating world at large. It's perhaps true for casual sex, but for monogamy, which is still the most common dating pattern for the overwhelmingly majority of Western civilisation, the math just doesn't work out.

I can't help but feel that this belief is understandably motivated by a desire to see oneself as belonging to the bottom 80%, rather than belong to the bottom 20%, or worse.

A lot of current dating move to online, for better or worse, vide https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/08/17/the-irre....

An in the online tools, physical attractiveness and the first impression matter much more, vide https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11469834.

What jobs still benefit from a man's physical strength anymore? Most things that need serious brawn use 'hydraulic muscles'? Soon women won't even ask us to twist the lid off jars anymore, there will be an iRobot for that. Where are men needed these days?

We automated away manliness. It's worth less these days. The least valued men are now valued even less. Frankly, I think these disaffected men should go back to the countryside where it's still relatively cheap and grown their own food and drugs. It's not economical to grow your own calories the old fashioned way, but neither is collecting welfare. And it'd be a heck of a lot gentler on the psyche to create something with your own hands. I remember Richard Feynman talking about researching topics that already had been written about just for the joy of discovery. It wasn't needed, but was done recreationally.

Landscaper. Arborist. Construction. Orthopedist. Orderly. Bouncer. Soldier. Sailor.

Agreed. The entire construction and trade industry is huge and these people get paid ridiculous money because nobody wants to do these jobs. These are pretty manly jobs imo.

Construction and trades get paid ridiculous money because no one wants to do those jobs? Bollocks they do. Have you actually spent any time doing any of these things?

Most of the jobs that nobody wants are outsourced to illegal immigrant labor -- the housing boom of the 2000's was built on their backs and their hard word.

Most of the tradies are pulling $50-80k USD, and that's a lot of hard work. That's good money if you're 20 year old, but a Network Engineer with a CCNA, some kinda degree, and 5 years experience will pull $105k USD in a big US city, all while at an air-conditioned desk. And those are the well paid tradesworkers; basic labor and less in demand trades often pays like shit, and doesn't provide benefits.

I ain't saying you can't make good money doing it -- I knew a carpenter who was like #1 ranked on Angie's List and pulled well north of 6 figures -- but those are the exceptions.

How do you suppose these disaffected men will get the capital to afford land, supplies, tools, and everything else needed to survive in the countryside?

It's interesting to me that you equate masculinity to physical strength but nothing else of value

"Most people (but especially men, given the propensity of the male psyche to become dependent on dopamine) would rather take the short term thrill of continuous dopamine"

Please don't spread misinformation. Take an study like Sex differences in addiction (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5286725/). If anything the propensity of the female psyche is more likely to become dependent on dopamine, but its an effect that only impact around 10-16% of the population.

> the main impetus for men to seek status of any kind is to impress women and provide a legacy for families.

Games provide an readily accessed environment for status competition among men. Women also gained a similar environment, called social networks. In both environments the objective is less about impressing the opposite sex and more about dominating the same sex. Unsurprisingly, if we look at what young men and young women spend their free time we see similar mount of excess from men choosing to play video games and women play the social network game.

With women reaching equality in the work force it seems that men are also moving closer to equality in free time, especially at younger ages.

Right, but as you said this

>men choosing to play video games

is just an extension of this

>status competition among men

and this

>With women reaching equality in the work force it seems that men are also moving closer to equality in free time, especially at younger ages.

is not necessarily an axiomatic good because of the above mentioned points.

This is an interesting comment to think about, I hadn't thought of comparing Women's social media usage to Men's video game playing.

There are a lot of similarities at least on the surface, definitely an interesting one to think about.

> Vocational training isn't going to fix the fact that the government benefits the article cited allows the men to stay at home playing video games all day.

> Enabled by the preponderance of easily accessible government money, drugs, etc, these men...

The benefits we're talking about here are disability benefits, and the intended outcome of those is that some people will be able to stay at home all day.

"Fixing" this problem by curtailing the benefits would not fix anything, but rather just reintroduce the problems that the benefits solved (like increased economic burdens on loved ones, homelessness, etc.).

Yeah, what this article fails to address at all is the way people like this got by historically. The truly 100% disabled were put into work houses or left on the street.

Those partly able bodied had a much more diverse array of employment/living arrangements that society accepted. i.e. you could be partly disabled and get yourself a live in job as a domestic or farm hand. This ensured your room and board was covered and that daily you worked with a group of people who understood your needs. But it virtually guaranteed you'd never have a home or family of your own.

The able bodied shirkers who didn't feel like working would do a few siffert thingsb, bum off family, work as cons or professional criminals, or find themselves a sweet job with a group of like minded shirkers or lackies that would cover for them.

This changed a bit with the middle of the 20th centuury needing so many workers but then the U.S. unleashed women into the work force. The vast majority of them were bound to outshine the bottom 11% of men easily.

> “ Fixing" this problem by curtailing the benefits...

Another way to address a partial fix is to decriminalize getting a job after previously being on disability. Currently that is used as evidence that there was no previous disability and can lead to prosecution for fraud and attempts to claw back those previous benefits.

It's even worse it works both ways. Trying to get a job can stop your benefits and if the job doesn't work out you'll have a hard time getting your benefits back. Better to not try.

Wow those are absolutely terrible incentives that we've setup. I didn't realize that it was so bad.

Consider housing assistance programs. Using rough numbers. Say you make $25k/yr. And benefits are capped at 26k. You get 500/mo towards rent, or 6k/yr. Unless you get at least a 6k raise (add ~30% for taxes, 7.8k) you would be stupid to take a different job or even a pay raise.

Warning: There's probably a bunch of mathematical errors ahead.

This example does not take other assistance programs into account like snap/EBT, fuel assistance, cars for low income families, Medicaid benefits, etc. Snap/EBT can be $200+/mo iirc, fuel assistance 200-1k/yr, Medicaid for a family is $600+/mo. Assuming 100ebt/mo, 500 fuel/yr, 600/mo Medicaid that's an additional 8.9k.

6000 housing 1200 ebt 500 fuel 7200 Medicaid ~15k ×1.3 for taxes = 19.5k in benefits that cap if you make 1k more. 25+19.5=44.5k

The parent earning 25k would need to nearly double their income to fill the gap between left by benefits they no longer qualify for.

This didn't consider health care deductibles, dental (children get dental on Medicaid), or out of pocket expensive covered by Medicaid.

My health insurance plans max out of pocket is 8k. Add that.

Low income Families are also eligible for school lunch assistance, subsidized day care/after school programs.

School breakfast and lunch at my school was 5.5/day/180 days. ~1k.

Day care, summer programs,holiday programs, and after school programs can add 20k/yr.

Add another 29k. (37.7)

Which brings us to 78.2k

This parent who smartly took advantage of every opportunity they could recieves 200% their take home in assistance. Now after filing hundreds of forms to take advantage of these programs how much time do you think they'll have to spend towards tripling their income?

How much time will they even have to spend with their children between the constant battles with bureaucracies for benefits and their job to spend with their child?

> the fact that the government benefits the article cited allows the men to stay at home playing video games all day

Is that actually the case?

The article takes issue with the narrative that supply and demand are involved ... but I don't think this article proves this idea that folks are enjoying government benefits and that results in them not working. The article certainly mentions it, but is pretty short on evidence.

Plenty of US states have been cutting benefits, and they're not seeing people go back to work.

Disability is a federal benefit (not state) and according to the article a whopping 2/3 of these men are on at least 1 federal disability benefit. Furthermore, 1/2 of the men take prescription pain medication daily.

The government benefits certainly make it easier to not work, but the article does pain to say that correlation is not causation - it is a multi-factor phenomenon. Government benefits may enable the behavior but it isn't a cause.

What really had my brain going is why is this not the case in the Western Europe? Social benefits are just as generous and marriage rates are lower than in the United States.

According to the article in the US marriage and children were the strongest statistical differentiator between men who stop seeking work and those that do.

All I could come up with is that in the US it is the pain medication and the fact that it is easier to isolate yourself and hole up in your home.

Could be the difference in pay for low wage jobs. It seems that this is what it comes down to.

Many male, high-school dropouts have decided it's a better deal to just coast by on disability and money from friends/family then to work for $10/hour at McDonald's or similar.

The way to bring them back into the workforce, IMO, is to offer them a better deal. If low-wage jobs in the U.S. were as good as they are in Eastern Europe, maybe more men would take them.

Another person commented below what I think is brilliant insight.

"In America (USA) you ARE your job; it defines you. The American Way is to be hard working and self sufficient. If you can't do that, there are tremendous psychological effects. You can't blame these men for giving up."

It is absolutely true that worth and career are highly correlated here in the US. Most of us talk about work even when we aren't at work. I think this is probably the big difference between US and Europe having read it.

Meh. The idea that Americans talk only about their job is mainly only true in the upper classes of professionals. Most Americans, the poor and lower middle class, do not talk about their jobs, because talking about being a taxi driver or walmart greeter is not as engaging as talking about being an investment banker, lawyer, or software engineer.

FWIW, the same is true in Europe. Rich people define themselves by the method in which they get rich.

> Most of us talk about work even when we aren't at work

People on hacker news are mostly upper middle class.

Another way to phrase that is that jobs at the lower end are not worth talking about. They're not a point of pride. Combine that with the GP notion that people use their job as part of their identity and what does that do to their self esteem?

> If low-wage jobs in the U.S. were as good as they are in Eastern Europe, maybe more men would take them.

Are you saying low wage wage jobs are good in EE? I can assure you that's not the case. Millions of low wage workes from EE left for Western Europe upon joining the EU. They still do low wage work, but the pay is so much higher in the UK, Germany, Norway etc.

> What really had my brain going is why is this not the case in the Western Europe?

Can you explain? Western Europe by and large suffers from the same problem. According to Brookings (https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/ccf_201...), while the US has a faster rate of male labor de-participation, the UK, Canada, and France are experiencing similar issues (Figure 2). No idea about the cause though.

The article says that in Western Europe the rate at which men drop out is much lower than in the US. I only had the article as a frame of reference for my question, I did not have the Brookings institution study for additional color. Interesting reading, thank you.

> Disability is a federal benefit (not state)...

Maybe in the state in which you live. I am currently on state (CA) disability.

-- which will expire after you've been on it for 52 weeks [1] after which, if you still cannot work, you can resort to (US) federal disability insurance.

[1] https://ca.db101.org/ca/programs/income_support/sdi/faqs.htm...

In Europe the benefits are not necessarily tied to being diagnosed with a disabling condition. In the US they are, so people do what they can to manifest a disabling condition so that they can qualify for generous benefits along with drugs that can be resold on the black market. Clearly this was not the intended result but it's sort of a third rail politically so there has been no real movement towards reforming this in any meaningful direction.

In Germany, you can receive partial disability benefits ("Erwerbsminderungsrente"); that is, you might be evaluated as being capable of 3-6 hours of work per day, and thus receive only a portion of what would have been your full disability payment. Also, it's accepted (even hoped) that you might become fully fit again.

https://www.deutsche-rentenversicherung.de/DRV/EN/Leistungen... (under "Invalidity pension")

More details in German: https://www.deutsche-rentenversicherung.de/DRV/DE/Rente/Allg...

It's not the kind of safety net they're talking about, but a lot of the young are supported at a livable level by their parents. (source: am doing this)

I'd argue that this isn't inherently bad, but ultimately this can amount to "eating one's seed corn". In the long run, twenty-somethings that do this risk a financially more perilous life and a lower chance of being able to give their kids a good start in life.

Is there anything you have done that has improved motivation of your kids to get out of the house? I'm asking as a mid-twenty year old who has a few friends that haven't had a real job in years and wants to help. The main issue I've run into is that they just don;t care they are burdening their parents

When I was younger, everybody just wished for independence. What changed?

I'm betting on housing cost and low quality of life for youngs, but well, I do have very little evidence to substantiate it.

I have some twenty-something friends with upper-middle class parents who still live with them. they either didn't finish college or chose a less lucrative major than CS. they have low-wage jobs and mostly work less than fulltime.

the common thread I see is that living with their parents simply offers a higher standard of living than they could have if they moved out. I live in a relatively low COL area, so they would certainly be able to make ends meet if they cut the cord. but they would eat worse food, have a smaller room, and little money left over to save or go out. I imagine it's hard to find to motivation to work harder just to move out and decrease one's standard of living. I was very fortunate to land a good job straight out of college where I was actually able to increase my standard of living after moving out (although I do miss my mom's cooking).

I have friends like this too. you know them better than I of course, but I doubt that your friends don't care at all about burdening their parents. imo, guilt is just not a very effective motivator for someone to get their life together. it tends to make them feel bad and get even more set in their ways. the only way I've ever seen this work out is after some spark that gives the person an intrinsic desire to improve their own life (and the belief than they can).

as for what you can do for your friends, there's probably not much. the best you can do is to live well yourself and be a good example for them. also, be careful. there is some truth to the saying, "you become the average of your five best friends." if you get too involved in their day-to-day, you will experience friction when it comes to accomplishing your own goals.

> stay at home playing video games all day

Playing video games is monumentally boring after a short while. I just can't understand people who disappear into them.

Even the game I wrote for myself ( classicempire.com ) I rarely actually played, I'd spend my time trying to make the computer AI play better.

Video games are more mentally challenging & stimulating overall than any other task I regularly engage in. Especially Starcraft, which is absolutely exhausting to play competitively.

My day to day work as a programmer just doesn't push me mentally very hard. The kind of deep, exhaustive thinking I needed to get through difficult CS classes is unnecessary in most of my work (and the pacing is rather languid, most of the time).

Come join us in the D development effort. We have plenty of productive things to do that will push you past your limits. This kind of work is also good for giving your career a boost - this has happened to many on the D team.

This sounds interesting. Can you give any more information?

The web site is dlang.org, the source tree is https://github.com/dlang

Just hang out in the forums forum.dlang.org for a while and you'll get sense of what's going.

If you're ambitious, internally motivated, don't need to be micro-managed, and are a crackerjack programmer, you'll be welcome.

Do you guys accept contribution from junior devs (2-4 years out of college that have no compiler experience)?

We don't care who you are or what your resume looks like. If your work is excellent and is what we need, we'll accept it.

Compilers in the real world aren't that complicated - if you delve into dmd you'll spend way more time on the actual codebase than theory.

> Compilers in the real world aren't that complicated

Shhh - need to keep us compiler devs' salaries up!

I also can't understand it, life is fun and video games get boring pretty quickly. But that's probably why I am not staying at home playing video games all day.

Not for everyone. Some people drew the short straw in life, poor genetics (low IQ/ physical attributes), live in terrible environments, etc. There is more variance among men so more end up on the short end of the stick.

When every attempt at success is multiple times less likely because of those factors it's easy to get lost in games which are designed to feed that sense of achievement.

Life usually isn’t fun if you are hideous or stupid.

It probably doesn't help that women find 80% of men as ugly.

Many (most?) Of the time the choice isn't between video games and a fullfilling career. It's between a shitty job and games. It's very easy for me to say I would never do that, but I also have a pretty good job and a decent social life. Games also provide some sense of community that is increasingly harder to find in real life, especially if you're not successful by some metric.

This is strangely framed. The choice is, at the very least, between a job, games, and a library. And a trillion other things. Long walks. Gardening.

I’m not sure where the games narrative comes from. From the image on top of the article?

Also not discussed is the impact of unlimited access to pornography for sexual gratification on the reduction in male desire to do things that traditionally would attract women.

Yes, absolutely!

Is there a reason to claim that access to pornography is effecting employment rates for men?

Women did not exist the job market after internet access became widespread. It is thus hard to see any relation between access to pornography and employment rates outside of any gender stereotyping regarding both men and women.

"the preponderance of easily accessible government money" is kind of a stretch.

> (but especially men, given the propensity of the male psyche to become dependent on dopamine)

Where is this from, sounds interesting?

> given the propensity of the male psyche to become dependent on dopamine

Interesting. This anecdotally appears to be the case. Is there anything to back this point up?

could also be differences in socializations and cultural expectations. consider how we demonize single-moms receiving aid (god forbid they be women of color) and "boys will be boys" males fooling around and playing video games.

There is another aspect here which I suspect contributes the majority of the demonizing in this situation: being a single parent is assumed to be a sign of a broken relationship, which signals potential personal problems (whether poor judgment in a partner, poor conflict management, whatever). Of course, in reality there could be a plethora of other reasons, but this seems to be the assumed narrative.

On the other hand, consider the woman who's still single with no kids, maybe living at home with her parents, with no job. I suspect there'd be a lot less demonizing. Maybe even less so than towards the men, who are "supposed to be providing for a family".

> This anecdotally appears to be the case.

How so? You were given no anecdotes in the parent comment, so I don't understand why you think this is anecdotally demonstrated.

What government benefits allows a man to stay at home and not work? Just curious. I have tried to get government benefits when I was unemployed and got nothing but a small amount of unemployment benefits. $275 a week. That doesn't cover anything. No Medicaid or housing help would be given as I did not have children.

$275 a week puts you above the federal poverty threshold, and so, according to the government, is enough to cover basic needs. It is a pittance for HN crowd, but there are tens of millions of people in the US who survive on less than that.

According to Google, the US minimum wage is $7.25. $7.25 * 40 = $290/fulltime week. Tens of millions surviving on less must be an exaggeration?

No. 40 million Americans live for less than that, and half of that lives on less than half that.

https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/m#/faq/what-current-poverty-rate...

That is interesting. I will need to look into it more. Household size can skew the numbers with children involved. I could not rent a place and get food and other things like that for that amount. Also unemployment runs out after 6 months.

> given the propensity of the male psyche to become dependent on dopamine

Do you have evidence for this assertion? Curious

It is a well written article for presenting facts. The lack of solutions is welcome to me; and I recall that the word 'crisis' is closer to meaning an unstable situation than an actual problem.

The big open question here is what exactly should these people doing instead? 'Getting a job' is meaningless in itself - it isn't an end goal like 'secure my family's future'. If someone can survive comfortably without working then that is exactly what they should be doing; work isn't especially fun unless someone is a bit lucky with what they enjoy. The obvious 'solution' to me is to find a way to make these men more attractive to women so they can all start a family too; but the big problem there is there might not be enough women and they might not be interested in families so that is another dead-on-arrival idea.

The only concerning part of the picture is the rise in suicides and the likely fact that the experience is lonely and unpleasent. The not-working part could be construed the silver lining in the story.

> If someone can survive comfortably without working then that is exactly what they should be doing

Sure, as long as they are able to afford this on their own dime. Why should others have to work so some can stay at home all day?

>Why should others have to work so some can stay at home all day?

they don't have to, they can stay at home too but stay at home can be very depressing.

From a utilitarian perspective, there are follow-on effects to homelessness that we don't want to encourage. That's why.

> If someone can survive comfortably without working then that is exactly what they should be doing; work isn't especially fun unless someone is a bit lucky with what they enjoy.

As someone planning on retiring early, I completely agree, but these men are dependent on government benefits, which, being taken from my paycheck, are lengthening the amount of time I have before I can retire.

"taken from your paycheck" is a bit of an overstatement. many people on federal or state disability have previously paid into the social security, disability etc pools with paycheck deductions just like you have. the average person on benefits is not a freeloader.

when I got put on disability by my doctor, you weren't paying for me to not work. I was, because I've been paying into the fund for my entire career just like you have

If you’re on disability, it doesn’t take long to receive more back in benefits than you put in.

The system works because most people never draw a dime.

> As someone planning on retiring early, I completely agree, but these men are dependent on government benefits, which, being taken from my paycheck, are lengthening the amount of time I have before I can retire.

I mean, you're not technically wrong, but that accounts for a minuscule amount of the excess value you create. Unless you're your own boss/running your own business (I'm assuming you're not since you're talking about your paycheck), most that excess value is taken by the company owners you're working for. But it doesn't show up on your paycheck, so I guess its out of mind, and its certainly easier/safer to blame those with less power than you.

All this could be plausible, however in other countries many of the same factors are present, including government benefits, yet male labor force participation rates are higher.

Omg. Your message would have been written with "woman" instead of "man" youd would get legitimately drilled..

I'd rather the losers of society stay in their house, high and playing video games, rather than trying to impress women and provide a family legacy by engaging in gangster behavior to get money.

Also, if society is so plentiful that it can handle a certain percentage of people doing nothing but living for pleasure, why not let them? Work is not valuable except for its product, and if its product is not needed, the work is worthless.

If you are using work to bend adult people to a specific ideology (making the worker the product of his/her own work), you're being inefficient - it's not the job of a profession, company, etc. to provide social or moral training.

Your comment seems to indicate a serious hatred of pleasure.

I don't mind working hard, but if we don't have to, there's no point in it.

> Your comment seems to indicate a serious hatred of pleasure.

On the contrary. My comment indicates a serious love affair with pleasure, but not a particular fondness for fleeting pleasure. The things I mention -- family, dependents, and responsibility -- are a pathway to long-term happiness, satisfaction, and ecstasy beyond the reach of so many.

> I'd rather the losers of society stay in their house, high and playing video games, rather than trying to impress women and provide a family legacy by engaging in gangster behavior to get money.

Well, no it's quite the opposite really. First of all, stop with the strawmanning. The men in this article are not 'gangsters'. They are otherwise law-abiding men. Secondly, you are employing a circular reasoning. You call these men losers because they are unmarried and play video games all day and don't work. You then tell me to not cast judgement on their idleness. I am not the one calling them 'losers'.

These men being married and productive would not see them engaging in any kind of 'gangster' behavior. That is not a typical way to marriage and productive family life.

> I don't mind working hard, but if we don't have to, there's no point in it.

Well that's the point. Hard work is a path to happiness, but it's not one the human mind is naturally oriented towards unless there's some point to it.

I agree with your comment up to a point. At several points in my life I've dedicated it to recreation and felt great about it. :)

I'm not sure that work is only valuable for its product, though, unless you expand the definition of "product" to include changes in the worker. There are certain forms of work we realize this about: we call them exercises or practice. But it applies to a lot of work whose point might be primarily understood as production.

That isn't the only issue at hand, though. The number of unsolved problems or things that could just use dutiful attention in the world isn't so small that we can just write off hundreds of thousands of people from engagement with them.

We seem to have a culture and institutions that increasingly leave a gap between some people and these attentions/duties, though. And that sounds like a problem worth reflecting on.

I used to believe that work was only there for what it produced, but now know that that's wrong. Being useful is very important for mental well-being. It gives happiness and reduces anxiety and depression. When I was unemployed, I did volunteer work to keep my spirits up. It's important for people to work or otherwise have some purpose beyond personal pleasure.

> Being useful is very important for mental well-being.

I really think ultimately this is rooted in trying to impose a transactional or "karma bank" nature on things beyond humanity. "If you are good, the world will be nice", but the world/God/what is beyond humanity doesn't obey human rules, because it isn't human. You'll impress other human beings with this mindset, and that's extremely useful and will definitely reduce anxiety if you are among a group of people that recognize that, but if you are dealing with something beyond humanity, it's invalid.

For example, someone gets cancer/murdered, and they/their loved one think(s) they are being punished, or someone knows someone else who has cancer/got murdered/suffered X great loss purely at random, and they try to live a good life thinking on some subconscious level they can avoid it. It's tempting, because no one likes to be scared or out of control, but it's false and doesn't even work.

For companies to swoop in and be allowed or even encouraged to advantage of that--let's soak a third of your precious free time on this planet so you can pay a guilt/fear debt imposed by others out of fear and uncertainity--is terrible.

Fwiw, usefulness, even as a hikkiNEET, isn't only to be found in formal employment - but I totally agree with you about its importance.

I've known a lot of the sort of people described in the article over the years and one of the big factors that seems to dictate whether you love or hate the infinite free time lifestyle is what you do with that time. Doing nothing but consuming leaves you in a sad spot, while the full-time wiki editors, fansubbers, forum mods and guide-writers do a lot better in terms of self-respect and general mental state.

I think the phenomenon of the NEET is here to stay in rich societies, so I'm hoping that those affected are increasingly able to channel their energies into productive and rewarding outlets rather than drowning forever in vapid consumption.

I'd agree with you if we reached peak development and unemployment was high.

But there are people dying of hunger in the world, disseases that require funds to find a cure, infrastructure to be payed for and so on.

So if you pay your taxes, even if you consider your work "meaningless", your tax money, if spent well, is not meaningless.

Sure it's better than them joining crime, but its a sad state of affairs and not exactly optimal.

Some societies have been plentiful enough for a couple hundreds years to afford people not working/not net contributing, but those people would still be a burden, at least to missed development.

It seems you speak as if you understand the underlying causes, and that really bothers me, because I see no explanation why you would, nothing to back up your assumptions, and nothing to demonstrate your causations. You don't even have anything to demonstrate correlation. So it's a very weak argument you are making.

And, I'm okay playing hypothetical, but theorizing should be clear. You're theorizing and your theory is most likely wrong, and only minimally likely to be true. Due to the fact that for any issue, there are more theories that are wrong than right, those are the starting odds of theorization.

And now more directly addressing your partocular theory, why do you believe people would rather choose video games over a vocational activity given exposure, access, and training to both?

In general, when someone states something that is not settled fact, they are stating their own opinion. Yes, I have stated my opinion on the topic as a reaction to what I read, which is I believe the purpose of hacker news.

> You're theorizing and your theory is most likely wrong, and only minimally likely to be true. Due to the fact that for any issue, there are more theories that are wrong than right, those are the starting odds of theorization.

Certainly, if one picked theories at absolute random. Random theories would be things like 'men aren't working because elephants are gray' or 'men aren't working because a new sunspot occurred' or 'men aren't working because harry potter is really a chimpanzee'. On the other hand, if theories are picked in accord with the data presented in an article on the topic, and with an understanding of human nature, as well an understanding of the limits of causation (like, realizing the color of elephants does not typically cause changes in employment), then there is a much greater likelihood of theories being correct.

I would really recommend phrasing your comments better. Aside from being absolutely ridiculous (theories that humans formulate are very rarely picked at random, and you cannot pretend to understand the probability distribution of their truth value), your very comment is predicated itself on an arbitrary theory (that humans do indeed pick theories at random from the very large, perhaps infinite set of theories). Applying your own logic, your own theory is very likely to be wrong as well.

> And now more directly addressing your partocular theory, why do you believe people would rather choose video games over a vocational activity given exposure, access, and training to both?

Because video games are fun and I would rather sit at home and play video games if the government were paying me money and my parents hadn't made me afraid of going to hell if I defraud the government. Behind every man's opinion is his own assessment of his own character. I am not a saint, and I doubt most men are.

> Yes, I have stated my opinion on the topic as a reaction to what I read

Thank you. I just wanted you to state that your comment was pure conjecture. It isn't always needed to be explicit about this, but on this particular topic, there is quite a lot of bias and opinions flying around, lots of judgement calls, lots of existing stereotypes, and lots of inherited beliefs. So I think it is exactly the kind of topic where there is a need of such transparency. Similarly, it is in such a topic that I will be much more critical.

Alright, back on topic to your specific opinion:

> Because video games are fun and I would rather sit at home and play video games if the government were paying me money and my parents hadn't made me afraid of going to hell if I defraud the government. Behind every man's opinion is his own assessment of his own character. I am not a saint, and I doubt most men are.

So is your opinion coming from a place where you feel like you can relate to these men? And that you'd choose that path as well, if it wasn't from social pressure and your ingrained moral values?

I personally can't, as I wouldn't choose to sit at home and smoke weed and play video-games. Given the choice, there are many more things I would rather do, and it isn't because of social pressure or morals that I would make those other choices. I know many men who, when they have a free weekend, do not choose to spend it smoking weed and playing video games, including myself, for example. I know some men who do though, most of them employed, except for one who isn't, it also happen he comes from the least privileged background.

So as you said and I agree, since we're at the phase where, in order to make a better than random assessment of the situation, we use the most accessible data point we have: our own life experience. I'm afraid that my data point contradicts yours. It isn't social pressures and imbued moral values that prevent me from choosing to smoke weed and play video-game while cashing in on a disability check, it is just that those aren't the activities that I'm most interested in.

So, maybe I'm the outlier, and the majority of men would all favor video games and weed, but I somehow doubt that is the case. In any way, it is clear to me at this point that we need much more than our personal life experience to understand this particular phenomenon.

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