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Comment by futureshock | Hacker News Reader

This seems like a kind rational economic choice. If there are not enough good jobs that can support independent living, providing for a spouse, buying a home or raising a family, then staying home with the easy accomplishment of video games makes sense. Most people never live outside their home states and can't afford to leave the support network of their family and close friends. If you grew up in a medium or high cost of living area, then you're sort of stuck. I work in tech and still, owning a home seems pretty distant, so I can't imagine how it must be for someone without job skills.

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I'm just now middle aged and even when I was a twenty-something I never felt as ambitious or as risk embracing as I was supposed to be. My father and grandfather got into way more trouble than I ever did, with just about every facet of their life. My stories are absolutely tame in comparison.

It turns out the steady dopamine faucet is a stronger motivator than going out and trying to flirt, date, make friends, network, or hustle. Just spending time on the PC isn't even particularly fun, but as soon as someone proposes plans I suddenly feel like backing out and retreating back into my own world. I definitely sense this isn't "normal" for men and it's probably a consequence of modernity.

This is a troubling trend that I see in my sons and that I battle in myself.

Why go out and compete for money, success and sex when those things are at your fingertips. I really think it’s as simple as “turn off the TV”. The problem is that the world is a hard place, and games/porn offer a “good enough” alternative that offsets the trouble of putting yourself out there.

Sorry for making this thread weird by bringing porn in.

No, it's absolutely part of the equation. The internet has been an absolute game changer for how the human libido is satisfied. Pornography went from something rarely seen and socially awkward to acquire to something that is now ubiquitous, instant access, and even individualized. In fact, you have to go out of your way to avoid seeing sexual content on the internet.

Or brains and reward-systems have evolved for an existence as semi-nomadic subsidence hunter-gatherers. We're not equipped to deal with "temptations" modern society has to offer.

While porn might be a particularly good example, there's plenty of other traps as well. Social media, games, gambling, ...

All that is geared towards maximized 'engagement', e.g. to make us as addicted as possible in as little time as possible. It plays into our worst tendencies.

https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/

It's less about not having good jobs more about:

1. Most want to start business and become rich, not work for someone else. Starting business is difficult, needs lots of work, even if you are smart and hardworking, have capital to start, still you need social skills which present generation didn't develop, so getting along with others and leading others is still difficult which limits the success.

2. Anything you'll come up, there are guys who are already doing it better.

3. Work hard for what!? Beyond basic needs, even in dating women demand millionaires, average Joes are treated like disposable good for nothing who women say are creeps because they don't have money to build their IG brand and devour women with lavish gifts.

At the end of day, most people simply will not be motivated to take part in such system now that internet makes it possible for you to remotely live any life you dream of living even if it's only through some YouTube. A lot of things now seem less enticing.

Even guys who society might say are successful can't afford real estate at today's price, only way to afford considerable land is to move away from cities but moving away from cities also takes away your income source.

All these reasons are why I don't hustle hard anymore. I just try to make enough to coast in life and explore my hobbies, not working hard to get rich or any such goal. Because I don't really see how more money will change my life.

I agree with your first two points. Starting a business is hard, you'll probably fail (statistically) and there is likely someone else doing it better than you already. But part of starting a business is looking at that adversity and doing it anyways.

Your third point about dating, I couldn't disagree more. If you go on social media you will see arguments very similar to the one you made, basically if you aren't an athlete/millionaire/etc, don't even bother. I think these arguments come from a bitter place and as a result generalize women in general. I'm an average looking dude, certainly not a millionaire, but I go on dates pretty much every week with different women. I found that it's all about just putting yourself out there.

There is big difference between going on dates every week and finding a woman that will treat you as a potential life partner and father for her children...

I think this is a huge distinction. Stable career prospects are a huge factor in choosing a partner. And the HN poster you are replying to probably has better career prospects than most. The millionaire talking point seems like a distraction. The point is that many men have zero career prospects, and probably have a pretty terrible dating pool as a result. This all hangs together, no job, no partner, no kids, no home.

Where do you live? This has not been my experience on the west coast.

You might be underselling yourself. In any major city, being average isn’t sufficient. You’re just swiped over for the next guy who is above average. (They always exist on the apps, nearly infinite amount)

Somehow there are an endless number of men who are above average? Isn't that a self defeating point and mathematically impossible?

You realize many women feel this exact same way about being ignored because men just want models out of their league?

On dating apps, there are to most people an endless amount. You can just keep swiping. Very few people will swipe through the 200k+ dating profiles available in their area. Thus, endless…

Regardless of how women feel men are acting towards them, the stats don’t lie, women receive far more swipes than men. Something like 36x more.

I live over on the East Coast. I'd say that I look average, but its also about the profile and how you sell yourself.

(This is pure speculation based on my experiences) Out here I've noticed that Tinder and Bumble are just terrible to use, Hinge though seems to be the sweet spot. The problem I see with Tinder and Hinge is with the swiping, it turns it into a game of sorts where you're playing whose post attractive based on the number of points (matches) you get. With how Hinge is setup, I get fewer matches, but of those matches, I end up going on first dates much more often.

I also found that it's about playing the algorithm a bit and making sure your profile is setup right, think of it in terms conversion rate (from being in the "This person liked you" section to matching with someone). Before I started having success I went through probably 10+ iterations and tweaks to my profile to see what worked and what didn't. I also found that sometimes the algorithm just said F you and pushed me down to the bottom of the stack. In that case delete your profile and recreate it, I've had to do this once.

Go outside. Stop using apps. Unless youre incredibly attractive you always will get beaten by the person who makes a move in the real world. Hetero dating is gendered and apps remove the steps that a hetero man has to take, theres not much incentive for a woman who is already hit on regularly to use a dating app.

I wouldn’t say that’s really universally true. I’ve found many people who met their long term partner online and had a plethora of people coming up to them. I’d say sometimes online is better for particular interests. (Depends on the app)

Outside is quite overrated. Unless you’re in a particular niche where forced interaction is a thing or you’re exposed to an endless amount of people who are interested in partnering, you’re going to have a bad time. (Even compared to online dating, the real world sucks a lot more these days for the average man - as you’re always competing with both even if you opt out of one) Add on the typical issues we have in our culture and well - it’s practically taboo to approach people these days out of the blue outside an app.

I’ve got a lot of experience with online and offline (“outside”) and both are quite horrific for the average man. Hell, I’m exceptional in some areas and I have had a hell of a hard time anyway. People really want their niche - whatever that is.

I’ve been fortunate to find someone and mostly fit their niche but it was a long road. A lot of people who wanted everything and expected to give nothing.

This is a very pessimistic and distorted take on things.

1. From what I have seen most people want a job that pays for their lifestyle and isn't soul destroying. Sure people fantasize about becoming a successful entrepreneur, but certainly not most and not enough to give up on work in general.

3. This is frankly ridiculous and such a blatantly false view of what women want that it borders on incel philosophy. It appears entirely based on the extremely exaggerated and polarized views seen on social media rather than the far more moderate and balanced views the average person you come across will have. Most women do not demand millionaires. This is readily apparent if you talk to real women instead of only watching TikTok and Instagram models.

>> Even in dating women demand millionaires, average Joes are treated like disposable good for nothing who women say are creeps because they don't have money to build their IG brand and devour women with lavish gifts.

This is a ridiculous caricature of women. Most women aren't spending their time building IG brands, counting lavish gifts, and petulantly demanding millionaires. This sounds like a cartoon villain or something from a reality TV show.

Most women are trying to find their place in the world, figure out their goals, establish a career with reasonable prospects, work on hobbies, create a support network of friends, and hopefully find a partner to start a family.

If your attitude towards women is that they are money-hungry, delusionally entitled, and over-demanding then I'm not surprised they don't waste their time trying to convince you otherwise. They are busy spending time with people and looking for partners who don't treat them like delusional, spoiled children.

>This is a ridiculous caricature of women. Most women aren't spending their time building IG brands, counting lavish gifts, and petulantly demanding millionaires. This sounds like a cartoon villain or something from a reality TV show.

yes but this accurate in describing what the last couple women I was with were like. they were both women who approached me first, whatever that might tell you.

Until this year, I lived in the same place I grew up, one of the highest cost-of-living places on the planet: NYC. Until the pandemic, the goal of owning a home did seem totally out of reach for me, even with my remote SV tech job salary.

Then I moved to an unincorporated community in TN, because NYC's lockdowns, mask mandates, and general cultural decay was too much for me to bear - financially, emotionally, and even ethically.

I now own 15 acres of land with two houses on it. The median income in this part is <40k/yr and yet it's safer, friendlier, healthier, and best of all, much freer. High cost of living is a true killer of communities and the more expensive your area is, it's quite likely it's also a lot less free.

If you can leave the major cities in the US, it's possible for life to become a whole lot nicer.

Unsure why you're getting downvoted for this -- it makes good sense, and many could benefit from this kind of thing. I have a friend who moved from NYC to Ohio recently. He was bellyaching about it a lot (the move was for work), since he thought he would be so sad to leave the cultural opportunities of NYC, etc. Instead he has found that a) Ohio wasn't so bad after all, b) his stress-related conditions have evaporated, and c) he has more time to pursue what he loves doing in that environment.

> Unsure why you're getting downvoted for this

Any hint that dense urban living is not the optimal lifestyle for everyone gets downvoted here. For example, here's my super-controversial anecdote from yesterday, that people took time out of their day to try to bury: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27450896

Well there's also the angle of people moving from the big city into a small rural community and gentrifying it. A good friend of mine had to deal with this trend in Bozeman and was ultimately pretty much forced out by it.

There's definitely a tension between bringing money and people into communities that need them and bringing a lot of money and people and different preferences into communities in a way that makes them less good for the people already there.

A historical example: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansa_Musa#Islam_and_pilgrim...

Also, there may be blue-state vs red-state rivalry going on. OP basically moved from blue to red and is liking it.

You gotta keep hyping up the big cities: talk about the usual cliches like the food, the movie scenes, the 'culture'. Keep cities popular so everybody stays there and leaves land in the countryside for the rest of us.

Be proud, you made a very wise and healthy decision.

Has there been any culture shock for you? As someone who grew up in NJ, I'm always interested in hearing how other tri-state area people deal with moving from an urban to a rural environment.

I plan to do the same in a couple years, my hometown is unaffordable, with tech like Starlink coming online and the pandemic making remote work more common I can foresee a subset of tech workers choosing this path if they feel alienated in the larger tech cities.

"If there are not enough good jobs that can support independent living, providing for a spouse, buying a home or raising a family,"

This seems to be an issue across the board, at least in degrees, but that's because we live in an extractive oligarchy. This can't last forever. I just hope it doesn't lead to either revolution or socialism. We need to rethink our economic principles. Capitalism as state-sponsored usury or as consumerist decadence is not viable, just, or good.

Recall that in the 1950s, the single income of a working father sufficed to support a wife and their many children (since birth rates were much higher then). You can't do that anymore. That seems like a massive regression. We may have more flavors of ice cream, but who cares if that comes at the price of the important stuff. I say this without idealizing those decades. Those are the decades, after all, that led us to where we are today.

"then staying home with the easy accomplishment of video games makes sense."

Well, it doesn't make sense from the perspective of human flourishing. There are other things that a person in that position can be doing rather than pissing his life away in masturbatory activities like video games. This speaks to a deeper demoralization in our society, and in this case, that of men, and not just those who are unemployed or living at home. Our culture sucks.

The 1950's were an anomaly. Europe was in the doldrums, Asia was yet to develop. America had little competition for the resources it needed. I doubt those days are coming back any time soon. If anything its going to get worse as the rest of the world catches up and the dwindling resources people need are stretched between ever more people.

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