Strippers say a recession is guaranteed b/C the strip clubs are suddenly empty | Hacker News Reader

Strippers say a recession is guaranteed b/C the strip clubs are suddenly empty

indy100.com

69 pointsVicterius38 comments

I'm going to be honest and likely argued with, but my standard of living has been falling for a long time. Even while my income has been steadily increasing.

I've been in a recession for the past 10 years. If you don't hold assets you've been in a recession/depression whatever. It's been miserable.

Meanwhile most of the physical services are getting worse. Healthcare, road conditions, housing, etc.

This isn't progress.

People have become obsessed with manipulating digits and symbols, rather than building a physical reality.

its why I went back to school to study physical sciences join me

uh, that's not going to help you financially any more than being a dev

uh, there are more important things in life than money

Sure, but the comment this was a reply to was about money

Only partially. From my perspective, this was the point:

>People have become obsessed with manipulating digits and symbols, rather than building a physical reality.

fair enough

Return on capital for flipping bits has been much higher than physical. SWEs are paid far more than material scientists and I think the latter is much harder.

I've graphed my income since 2008. For a annual review,I inflation adjusted that salary from ,,2008 to today. In my mind, since ,,2018 it seemed the company's upgrades in pay were lagging.

So I graph it all and compare my pay with job descriptions at bls?gov.

It looked like since 2015, inflation has been eating my bottom line and even a professional cert bonus was clawed back by the company, etc. It took just a ,,8% raise to stagnate the decline this year.

I think prices and stock market values have distorted our perception of actual wages.

Other classic indicators come from (other?) service-sector employment. This may be more difficult to gauge given secular decline in brick-and-morter sectors, but especially qualified waitstaff, bookstore and electronics store clerks, etc., have been noted in past.

The indicator below relies strictly on appearance, though one might care to look deeper:

https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/hot-waitresses-th...

I've heard of this indicator from back in 2008. I guess it applies to cities with major stock exchanges where lots of traders/bankers go. It's probably too early to take this indicator too seriously considering the slump in stocks and the events in crypto. But that doesn't mean it should be disregarded either.

Many people I talk with on a daily basis including myself have had to liquidate small possessions just to keep shelter.

Not exactly a leading indicator when the NASDAQ is -25% on the year in May.

The wealth effect of that is obviously going to take a hit when it comes to balling out with coke and strippers.

It’s an echo chamber. Maybe people stopped going because they’ve been reading about all these recession indicators for weeks…

So... all that money printing was not a good idea eh?! Or maybe hiding virus leak was not a good idea either?!

asshole he says, curiously, assuming good faith

I can see and touch boobs for free at home, dunno why I'd go to the strip club in the first place

A recession just means two quarters of negative GDP, which we are probably already in, so this isn’t exactly shocking. Anyone with a basic grasp of current events could have told you we are probably in a recession, there’s nothing special about strippers.

> there’s nothing special about strippers.

That's just like your opinion, man.

Strip clubs are in a secular decline anyway so there are many confounding factors to take into consideration.

It's mainly that societal standards have risen . So men too want to feel unique and special and don't see the appeal of going to a place and pay for a woman they don't even know to grind on their crotch seconds after having done the same with an other patron, and seconds before doing the same moves with yet an other patron.

As societal standards rise men essentially become almost female themselves in their thinking and psychology around encounters with the opposite sex. I include myself in this characterization, it's kinda of an uncharted territory and kinda sad, but that's the way it is.

Going to the strip club is very easy, but it's not fullfilling unfortunately, it used to be, but not anymore, wish there was a way to go back

Absolute nonsense.

Lol go back to men having lower standards? The strip clubs are as good as ever

If you can't enjoy it anymore, the fact that it's still there isn't some consolation, isn't it?

And there is a secular decline:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-48667681

I would think it's a product of free porn and hookup apps, along with increased caution due to COVID.

I'm going with inflation. Definitely not some major societal shift. So much of the stimulus and pandemic unemployment money and probably PPP went to strip clubs. Prices are through the roof but people have less disposable income right now due to everything else also being through the roof.

It will even out somewhat. I don't think hookup apps are a factor really, but Onlyfans and premium snap chats probably are, at least on the supply side.

> So much of the stimulus and pandemic unemployment money and probably PPP went to strip clubs

Can you show that any significant portion of the money you mentioned went to “strip clubs”? That just seems like an attack on people who received unemployment.

Especially because PPP funds were issued when to support payroll at a time when non -essential businesses, like strip clubs, closed and removed direct customer contact.

Not clear if by "went to strip clubs" you mean "was paid to operators" or "made its way to patrons who paid it to the clubs"? My memory was that dancers tend to be paid like waitstaff and rely on tip income, quite possible they wouldn't have gotten much out of PPP if they weren't full time employees?

Porn has been free for a decade plus now, and hookup apps are just as old. As far as COVID, we are coming out of the dark ages concerning COVID protocols as many are vaccinated willingly, or unwillingly by contracting Omicron.

Pretty sure there was always a significant cohort of men, probably a majority in fact, who, through some combination of moral belief and personal pride, would not have frequented strip clubs. Sexual morality has been a big, big theme in lots of the major religions, especially the Abrahamic ones, for well on two thousand years.

I wouldn't doubt there's been a secular decline on a timescale of 3-4 generations, though.

Not to mention that "not frequenting strip clubs" increases your evolutionary fitness. Strip clubs take away your resources but don't increase your chances of reproduction in any way (possibly the opposite).

"Moral belief" in puritanicalism is correlated with higher consumption of sex industry products and services.

I don't think "fulfilling" has ever been something men have associated with strip clubs.

“You know, strip clubs weren’t really like how they show them in the movies” remarks the geriatric millennial as they turn away from ReBoot reruns for a brief moment, “not the most romantic of places back then.”

Lol, I don't even know how to respond to this comment, especially the Reboot mention which I remember fondly as a geriatric millenial.

"Wow, people still eat MacDonald's burgers and fries and watch TV? I haven't done either in 25 years. Go figure!"

It's literally just a fun place to go to when you're on multiple drugs, partying with friends and want some girls around. Not very deep, but I would get why some people dont understand the point of going out. Plenty of high status, less degen men go to strip clubs

Same with casinos, sometimes.. you just want to spend some time with friends? I get why people would think "why go to casinos/strip clubs when online poker/OF exist" but it's obvious these people don't understand what it's like to cut loose

I think women also have more outlets to harness mens urges for money on apps instead of in person

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