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Comment by d23 | Hacker News Reader

Do people find this stuff compelling? Rank speculation and confident assertion with minimal substantive backing?

I’d find this statement equally compelling (which is to say, not at all):

> Since we stopped using horses as a primary means of transportation, men’s sense of self worth has diminished. Riding a horse carried a lot of high status connotations: drive, masculinity, towering above the land, and man’s domination over nature. Now, we drive metal cars, low to the ground, and driving one is seen as commonplace. All of men’s low sense of self worth stems from this.

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It's very compelling when it lines up with my worldview in a way that makes me feel validated. Then I can absorb it uncritically and regurgitate the conclusions to people without thinking about the evidence that lead me to the conclusions.

Unfortunately, I'm not a WASP so your 'horse theory' doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

> Then I can absorb it uncritically and regurgitate the conclusions to people without thinking about the evidence that lead me to the conclusions

You forgot the part where I then accuse you of being the one blinded by ideology and bias.

As stated elsewhere in the thread, northern Europe bucks this "trend" that the author sees. The nuclear family is as weak as it has ever been, christianity and its ideals are an afterthought, and people have never been happier.

And yet the suicide rate in Norway is among the highest in the world. Crafted studies proclaim people to be happy but they forgot what happiness is.

> And yet the suicide rate in Norway is among the highest in the world

In relative terms, sure. But in absolute terms it's a tiny fraction of people: 10 per 100k.

If I had a nickel for every time the wikipedia link to whataboutism was the correct response to a hacker news comment, I would be rich

> people have never been happier

I always have trouble with this assertion. How do we actually know this? Do we feel that the surveys that are being given can even accurately measure happiness, and that the responses are comparable over time? It feels these questions are difficult to definitively answer, but I see all the time the tendency to reach for references to the World Happiness Report as if it should be taken automatically as an accurate measurement.

As far as I know, we don't even have measurements going back that far -- the earliest I've generally been able to find is from the mid/late 1900s. I think it's a bold statement to say people are the happiest ever right now.

What is a WASP in this context?

White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

Thanks!

Triggered my HN alert on horses. I ride seriously more days than not. It's a huge and rich topic, but short version is - there were no kings without horsemen. It's been the training for officer class for milennia because it uniquely inculcates a fearlessness and physicality and magnanimity that really does elevate and improve men by developing qualities that are transferrable to other beings in nature.

There are men, and there are horsemen. Even in ancient mythology, wisdom originated from the "centaurs," from the "east." It's not woo. I may even write a book on it. Mostly women ride in north america (outside western/rodeo), and the reasons for that are at least as controversial as this thread. Women who ride seriously are usually superior leaders as well, and it's just not something one can easily explain without experience in it.

> Women who ride seriously are usually superior leaders as well

Always good to wake up one day and find out I'm a superior leader.

Super interesting take! I would love to learn more about it (as as fellow rider).

I don't think it's rank speculation, the article itself mentions 1 in 6 men are unemployed, and there have been plenty of other articles that have been posted on here with statistics on the number of men that aren't just unemployed but have no interest being employed. College enrollment of men is somewhere around 44% of the student body nation wide in the US, the number of men in higher education has been dropping for a couple of decades now. Girls are significantly outperforming boys from Kindergarten to 12 grade nearly everywhere. This stuff has been posted on here and discussed many times.

There was another article posted on here before similar to this one and I posted my thoughts on the trend from the perspective of coaching high school girls and boys sports: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30274979&p=4#30276972

>College enrollment of men is somewhere around 44% of the student body nation wide in the US, the number of men in higher education has been dropping for a couple of decades now. Girls are significantly outperforming boys from Kindergarten to 12 grade nearly everywhere.

Interesting. Are the changes in education biased against boys?

> Do people find this stuff compelling?

I enjoyed reading it. It's a subject area I've been thinking about from time to time.

> Rank speculation and confident assertion with minimal substantive backing?

It's an opinion piece, so I read it as such. That is, like having a discussion with a buddy at the pub.

I have definitely observed the "we need to put little johnny in safety padding for all things" amongst my friends and their kids. My kids were free to roam (within reason) and try things most people shudder at. They learned to cook relatively young, use power tools (after many safety instructions), stay over at friends houses, be around adults talking about adult stuff, etc. They both survived and became healthy, happy young adults (21 and 19 currently) who weren't afraid to take a chance or risk a little pain; they learned that the journey is as important as the end of the trail (learning is a reward, and you'll hit painful road blocks along the way). I had some parents breathless when I told them I let my two 15/13 year olds camp in the woods by a lake over a weekend for fishing and enjoying nature by themselves, because I trusted them to stay out of trouble and use their common sense. I also know they snuck along their handheld gaming devices along with them too and got a chuckle out of their limited rebelliousness. Learn to give kids some slack and they'll set their own goals and not be afraid to go for them.

It’s like Jared Diamond stuff. Primarily it’s hypothesis generation. You’re not supposed to accept it as true. You’re supposed to consider it and consequences so you can consider “If this is true, what else would one conclude? Do those conclusions affect something I care about meaningfully? If so, how can I establish the truth?”

They’re risky though because you have to actively discard the priors you temporarily held afterwards or you’ll go around thinking that “I read an article that said”.

> Do people find this stuff compelling?

Sure, I mean, it's something to think about. Something I can read and consider which parts I agree with or disagree with and why that is. It's not a topic I know anything about really, beyond my general experience of life, so I don't need to be annoyed at things that an expert might recognise as being factually incorrect (unlike if I read, eg, a journalist talking about software where I'm likely to be frustrated at how many things they've got wrong)

It's a personal statement from someone with relevant lived experience. Exploring others' viewpoints is interesting, if only to find out that they exist. The article touches on questions that do not currently have an objective answer: Why do people do the things they do? Should they be doing something different? Science may someday provide an objective ("substantive") answer to the first, but it can't choose our goals (make value judgments) for us, so articles like this are valuable. And social media works a lot better for opinion-based than objective discourse because everyone can participate on equal footing.

It's a shit article where the author lightly blames what one would generally call "elites" for the stupidity and moral ineptitude of lower-class people who avowedly hate elites and who make it a point of hating everything the "elites" like anyways.

"the stupidity and moral ineptitude of lower-class people who avowedly hate elites"

I have never encountered an individual who claims to hate the "elite". And I for one will not complain if someone hates a person who holds your classist views.

And what do you mean by "elite" anyways? If people dislike those in the position of authority, especially politicians, they generally have very good reasons for that. To quote from the article,

"Today, one in six American men between the ages of 25 and 54 are unemployed or out of the workforce altogether: about 10 million men. This number has more than doubled since the 1970s."

"I have never encountered an individual who claims to hate the 'elite'"

I don't know what to tell you there. Go talk to more individuals? Go read some right-wing propaganda (e.g. almost anything that comes out Josh Hawley's mouth, or certain off-bench remarks from Justices Alito and Thomas--and yes, all of these individuals are also "elite", but because their views are in the minority among elites, they can't like they aren't "elite" and rail against the other elites).

Go see who likes them, how it plays with that base, and see also how it plays with the far-left camp (e.g. Bernie, who I generally like but who has a lot wrong, and AOC) too, though they may use different language. It's a pretty popular meme (I wouldn't call it worthy of being labeled an "idea") among certain segments of the population, sometimes for different reasons.

"And what do you mean by 'elite' anyways? If people dislike those in the position of authority, especially politicians, they generally have very good reasons for that."

I was not thinking of politicians, but, fwiw, I would say blind/reflexive hatred of politicians is a prime example of a kind of idiotic and adolescent trend in American culture to just hate traditional authority figures.

There are probably plenty of good reasons to hate them, sure, but ask people who say things like "oh yeah they're all corrupt" how they know that, what evidence they have, whether they can list the past several major corruption scandals, how corruption here compares to other countries, etc, and they can't do it at all.

As you said, Hawley (Stanford and Yale alumni), JD Vance (Yale alumni), even Trump (from a wealthy family and Penn alumni) are all political elites but also quite popular with the right-wingers. So it's not really about hating the elite, unless by the elite you means a specific subset of Democrat politicians and activists.

How many people would object to being operated on by a prominent Harvard surgeon because that person is part of the elite? How many would oppose their children attending an Ivy League or a selective and private university on the ground of being an elite institution? Do people hate engineering professors at MIT because they're elite or do they actually respect them because of their expertise?

"oh yeah they're all corrupt"

To be clear, I believe that the Harvard and Yale alumni and the other political elites who planned & supported the many coups of the 20th century, started the Iraq war (Bush admin), bombed Libya (Obama) into poverty, etc. are all corrupt and deserve our contempt. It does not have anything to do with corruption scandals either because it's a structural problem where politicians have to cozy up to the defense and oil industries among others to advance their careers and get paid.

"As you said, Hawley (Stanford and Yale alumni), JD Vance (Yale alumni), even Trump (from a wealthy family and Penn alumni) are all political elites but also quite popular with the right-wingers. So it's not really about hating the elite, unless by the elite you means a specific subset of Democrat politicians and activists."

They appeal to their base in part by disavowing that status. Hawley and Vance in particular are pretty much throwing out much of what they learned in law school by cozying up to Trump with the stolen election bs. Going off of their credentials is silly, and I think you know that--listen to what they say. They are feeding upon and taking advantage of the rabid anti-intellectualism and anti-elite hatred of their base.

> I have never encountered an individual who claims to hate the "elite".

Go on reddit, the refrains of "eat the rich" are quite common. People there hate the rich and the elite.

That being said, poor people are not "stupid" or have "moral ineptitude." They're just poor, something that those who have never been poor will not understand. It's a victim blaming mentality.

"Go on reddit, the refrains of "eat the rich" are quite common. People there hate the rich and the elite."

Well, an argument is lost if it starts by referring to the people who post on reddit.

But do people really hate an expert contractor who is rich but does an excellent job of repairing their house? Do they hate a prominent surgeon or medical professional? Are they against being represented by an elite law firm? People hate John Carmack because he is a rich and prominent graphics programmer?

My point is that what some perceive as a hatred of the rich and/or elite in general is not that at all. Instead, it is anger towards a subset of the elite and as I said there are other underlying reasons for that.

There are rich people on reddit too, such as those on /r/fatFIRE.

> But do people really hate an expert contractor who is rich but does an excellent job of repairing their house? Do they hate a prominent surgeon or medical professional? Are they against being represented by an elite law firm? People hate John Carmack because he is a rich and prominent graphics programmer?

Those people are not what one would consider rich and elite. It is more meant for people who are in the billions of dollars of net worth territory, at least as I understand it.

The way I have been using it is basically anyone comfortably well-off and educated, living in a major city.

When the political right uses the term "coastal elite", etc.

I haven't encountered these individuals either, but they certainly exist. Class barriers are often considered in the abstract, but when it comes to physical manifestations of these differences, it can be raw and visceral. One photograph that stuck with me was the "eat the rich" [0] spray painted in Beverly Hills park during the early Covid protests.

[0]: https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/06/15/16/29633080-8422685-...

I'm not arguing about their existence. After all, there are very strange people in the world.

The "eat the rich" mantra is a manifestation (although not really physical) of the incredible and widening gap between the middle class and the rich. Generally the life of the lower and the middle class has become more precarious while the top 0.x% have become obscenely more wealthy.

There’s a growing trend of blaming the lower upper-class for societal issues. Whether it’s due to their excess quantity or their moral licentiousness. Yup it’s definitely them and not the people who control the levers of power

Nicely articulate point, that you for taking the time.

Thanks. I initially thought “what’s the point” but didn’t have anything better to do.

There is a certain class of very smart, articulate and well-thinking people. They are very good at arguing and dismissing and coming up with all sorts of valid reasons for all sorts of ideas. I find they detract the conversation a lot, instead of adding substance. I refer to the nebulous group of them as the "Intelligentsia", borrowed from others though.

They're never here to give a voice to people who don't have one, or to make us look at the material in any different way besides complete dismissal. You call them Intelligensia but I call them people who suck all the oxygen out of the room.

Oh I didn't mean the term to be a compliment in any way. They're the kind of people that bludgeon normal people's debates and arguments with their breadth of knowledge, memory, intelligence and sheer typing capacity.

that's one thing i like about riding a bike. i get to look down at people in cars ;-)

And realise with growing horror how common texting and driving really is.

No, it is garbage. A huge series of completely unsupported claims.

The substance is missing, but at least the subject matter is interesting.

Honestly, that kind of makes sense. Riding horses is a bit of a masculine thing. I wonder if there's a 'tiny bit' to that. That said, I wonder if most men ever even really rode horses very often.

No, horses were incredibly expensive historically speaking. They need land, food, care, all of which were real expenses.

In my country rural areas only poor had horses. The rest had cars and agricultural tractors.

>Do people find this stuff compelling? Rank speculation and confident assertion with minimal substantive backing?

For me, it’s just playing with models, exploring ideas and representations in human-language space, which is fun, complex, hard… in that space, which you may call unsubstantial, every word references an individual graph. The more my attention system interfaces with the representations of such external graphs, the deeper my understanding of the world as a whole (or our shared models of it) becomes. So yeah, I enjoyed the read, Someone spent their energy on that. Don’t be so dismissive :-)

Yeah this horse line is a stretch.

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