Here is Erik Hurst, from an excellent piece profiling Erik Hurst:
Right now, I’m gathering facts about the possible mechanisms at play, beginning with a hard look at time-use by young men with less than a four-year degree. In the 2000s, employment rates for this group dropped sharply – more than in any other group. We have determined that, in general, they are not going back to school or switching careers, so what are they doing with their time? The hours that they are not working have been replaced almost one for one with leisure time. Seventy-five percent of this new leisure time falls into one category: video games. The average low-skilled, unemployed man in this group plays video games an average of 12, and sometimes upwards of 30 hours per week. This change marks a relatively major shift that makes me question its effect on their attachment to the labor market.
To answer that question, I researched what fraction of these unemployed gamers from 2000 were also idle the previous year. A staggering 22% – almost one quarter – of unemployed young men did not work the previous year either. These individuals are living with parents or relatives, and happiness surveys actually indicate that they quite content compared to their peers, making it hard to argue that some sort of constraint, like they are miserable because they can’t find a job, is causing them to play video games.
This problem, if that is the right word for it, will not be easily solved.
Huh? If working hours have been replaced by leisure, 75% of that is video games, and the average man in this group plays 12 hours per week, were they only working 16 hours per week previously?
Maybe it’s because I’m one of those no good millennials, but I actually laughed at the implication that playing video games for 12 hours in a week — less than two hours per day — means anything. When I had a traditional 40 hour work week, I had no problem whatsoever finding 12 hours a week for video games. I didn’t even have to sacrifice going to the gym or other hobbies.
Oddly enough, going back to Academia is what killed my video gaming time (and the rest).
> Oddly enough, going back to Academia is what killed my video gaming time (and the rest)
I second that.. Academia and starting a family, and that only at least until the kids get old enough to game with you.
It’s impossible to overstate how out of touch this study looks to anyone 32ish or younger. People with GOOD jobs play video games on 12 hours a week. My unemployed friends play like 50 hours a week.
I think that there is a typo. They mean to say “12 hours per day”.
Same reaction here. I routinely spend 10-15 hours per week playing a video game of some kind.
20 years ago people like me would have been watching TV for 2 hours a day. Now we’re playing games.
“They mean to say “12 hours per day”.”
It doesn’t really compute then when they say “upwards of 30hr/wk”.
Either the interview was transcribed incorrectly, or Hurst was speaking carelessly, but there’s no way that 75% number and 12 hour average can both be correct. I can well believe that the average young unemployed man spends 12 hours per week gaming, so I’m thinking Hurst meant to say “Up to 75% of this new leisure time is spent on gaming”.
The average man plays 12 to upwards of 30 hours a week.
Many jobs these days for unskilled people are 12 to upwards of 30 hours a week.
The unskilled need two, three, ten jobs a year to get to 40 to upwards of 60 hours a week.
You get a job that is on demand, so you get another job also on demand that seems to fit, but then it doesn’t so you get another job expecting to not get time anymore at the job you failed to show up at because you can’t work at two places at the same time.
Keep in mind you can only play against buddies if they are free to play at the same time.
Besides, to live with relatives, they probably “work” but it’s not work because they get no pay. They live with parents who are retired who need help. Maybe just a driver and someone to carry stuff. Think “bad servant”. But maybe they are a really good butler, always anticipating the needs of the master and mistress. Maybe they watch the kids of their sister so she can work three part time jobs without paying all the income from one or two jobs for childcare. The kids are dropped off at her parents but her brother deals with the kids, not her mother, sort of bait and switch.
I speak from my own experience as someone who has not worked since Bush cut my taxes in 2001. When I have and do stay with others, I work much harder than when I’m at home. I’ve been staying 3 months a year with my sister who works, closing up my house to freeze, saving $2000 in energy. Of the times I have vacuumed in the past five years, all have been at her house. I cooked meals to recipes she clipped or based on food she got on sale. I fix appliances. Build shelves, mount the TV so her cats don’t knock it over, enhance the cat tree, clean the bird feeders to attract bird for the cats. My sister seems to appreciate my using her energy and eating her food in a way the big corporations paying $8 an hour to people to do checkout on unpredictable schedules for 12-30 hours a week don’t. Back in the 60s, I was treated much better by employers, when I was unskilled labor, shown appreciation like my sister does, and paid better in real terms.
By the way, in 1920 or so, half of US households had no one with a job. But that didn’t mean people didn’t work. But much of the year they had plenty of leisure.
So you are like a butler? That is a cool job.
>I speak from my own experience as someone who has not worked since Bush cut my taxes in 2001
So the tax cut caused your unemployment? That explains why you’re so bitter about Republicans and “trickle down economics”
On average they are working 16 hours less per week than previously. The group on average works some hours, but averages 16 hours less than before.
My brother is in this demographic. He went to a fairly crappy state college and dropped out in freshman year. Now he works a crappy job for 16 hours a week and lives with our parents. Funny thing is, they think he’s working 40 hours a week and saving up money in order to eventually move out. He made up a whole fictitious second job, even bought ‘work clothes’ on the internet to fool them.
I don’t blame him for his lifestyle, economically it makes sense. Leisure is better and cheaper than it used to be, while wages for crappy jobs have stagnated. Girls won’t touch him no matter what, so he doesn’t feel any motivation to make money to impress them.
Whether this is a ‘problem’ depends on your perspective. Personally I would welcome a shift in the culture to one of shorter work hours, less consumption, and more free time.
We spend our lives working….
At jobs that numb our minds…
So we can buy things we don’t need….
To impress people we don’t like…
(stole this from Fight Club)
Is Fight Club an accidental allegory for video games then?
except this guy: http://earlyretirementextreme.com/how-i-live-on-7000-per-year.html
Other than committing fraud on his own parents, there’s no problem at all.
Even if the charade works for now, sooner or later it’ll be clear he’s not moving out. And is Ragar prepared to house his brother after his parents can’t or won’t?
Although they do complain about it, deep down I think my parents don’t mind all that much. They have a big house, plenty of money and, as far as I can see, live pretty boring lives. I’m sure that kind of dynamic is common.
I assume that someone in the family worked hard at some point to afford the big house. Lazy kids living at home is not a sustainable model for most people for more than a generation or two.
Hmmm…obviously you know your family infinitely better than I do.
If your lazy brother nonetheless saw fit to go to that much trouble to invent a second job, I wonder how casual your parents really would be about his situation if they knew the truth.
I wish that my boys would live in my home but both moved away quickly. One stayed with us almost 2 years after graduating high school and saved his income to buy a condominium the other left for college and never lived with us again. I dislike the way we live in modern USA families spread out.
“I wish that my boys would live in my home but both moved away quickly. ”
But would you wish them to be how they are or more like the kind of dependent boy who typically lives with their parents?
Let’s look a wee bit into the future. Where is this gonna lead? One day your parents will pass away so your loser brother will not be taken care of anymore. I suppose he could still survive on the money they leave for him but unless it’s a ton at some point it will run out. Actually, even if it’s a ton being the person he seems to be & having no experience managing money he will most likely piss it away pretty quickly. What then?
Greece tried that, but when Mutti Merkel discovered the fraud, she refused to keep footing the bill and is forcing them to adopt a stronger work ethic. People who don’t work much also don’t save much, and you’re going to have a hard time convincing those people to live on a diet of Top Ramen noodles and rely on herbal remedies in their old age.
Clearly this is Obama’s fault. Slightly more progressive income taxes have diverted your brother from creating a multi-million dollar plumbing contracting business that would have created so many jobs.
Perhaps we could do a gofundme page to pay his tuition for Trump University.
I guess there’s no point in sending to Laureate Education now that Hillary’s hubby is no longer in on that one.
“He went to a fairly crappy state college…”
Did he? I mean IMO ‘Trump University’ can be fairly called crappy in the sense that it did nothing for anyone, serious student or not. Of the people that went to this ‘crappy state college’, imagine if you could sort their careers in an Excel sheet from best to worst. Somehow I suspect those at the top of the list would be doing pretty good.
Is the school crappy then or is it just that many who go to it don’t make anywhere near the most out of it they can?
It’s a legitimate university but one where if someone said they went there you just knew that it was because they couldn’t get into the state’s top two public universities. My brother was just very lazy. I tried to warn him he would need to work a lot harder than he did in high school, but he didn’t listen.
If it admits many students who don’t make the most of what it provides, then it is crappy.
Every university is crap under this model.
‘Trump University’ is quite educational. You learn:
1. Schools are for signaling, and what a school like Trump U signals nothing good.
2. There is a sucker born every minute and you were one.
3. There really is no secret to investing in real-estate, just save take risk and work hard and if you get a few breaks you can do well.
4. You could have learned by doing and maybe have made money while learning.
5. Not to do that again.
6. To be a little less trusting.
“fairly crappy” here means “more crappy than average”, not “justifiably called crappy”
Cool story, bro. If I ever have a kid sometime around 9-10 years old he / she will be made aware that as soon as they hit 22 the gravy train has reached its last stop.
Social contract — If you work hard then you can reasonably expect to have a chance at being able to afford at least a mule, a few acres, a small cottage, wife, and kids. (Roughly a J-J Rousseau paragraph, IIRC.) No such expectation? Then substitute Farmville and porn.
I think most can afford a small cottage without electricity, indoor plumbing or central heat.
I think such dwellings as you describe are illegal to construct and/or live in. OTOH RVs can have electricity and plumbing hookups, are orders of magnitude cheaper than houses, and also legal to own and live in. I don’t know about heating though.
You don’t need heating if you live in the Sun Belt and in the summer time you can migrate north to beat the heat.
“such dwellings as you describe are illegal to construct and/or live in.”
I feel that this is an underappreciated point in a lot of economics discussions: that our rising expectations of living standards made it *illegal* to fall below the line. From houses, to child care, to even (in a way) the minimum wage… you *have* live up to expectations, or else you’re breaking the law.
Is 12 hours a week more than educated and employed young men play? According to statistics collected by Steam (like Netflix for games for non-gamers), I occasionally play up to 20 hours a week while working in a lab as a PhD student.
I had the same question… I work full time in a great, well-paying career and I probably play that amount per week too.
So you’re not employed…
work/school, video games, commenting on blogs. I do not see how anyone can manage all three at substantial levels.
See? When even smart, well-educated people only work & play video games we end up with a totally incompetent imbecile knocking on the door of the White House.
Well, it’s good that young people with no prospects aren’t miserable, though it’d be better if they had prospects.
Lucky Ducky hasn’t got a job but has got an Xbox and isn’t miserable. That Lucky Ducky always wins?
(Not a rebuttal or anything, just s comment that sprung to mind and was vaguely connected)
If they were miserable, I strongly suspect the GOP would be measuring the White House drapes by now.
Hey, maybe Erdogan will take a hint and subsidize video games for the Turks.
“If they were miserable, I strongly suspect the GOP would be measuring the White House drapes by now.”
It’s only relevant if they vote.
From a blog entry called “Self-Indulgence Stinks”:
And why exactly should society celebrate women’s college GPAs more than men’s high PlayStation scores? After all, college is mostly a wasteful signaling game. And men still out-earn women on average at all ages, mostly because women tend to choose self-fulfilling majors and careers over high paying ones. So those higher fem GPAs are more a sign of self-indulgence than social contribution, at least if we measure contribution by income.
And even if women did earn more, are folks devoted to working to pay for high fashion or travel really any less self-indulgent than those who hone guitar skills? Let’s not forget that our vast fall in fertility seems due more to the changing preferences of women (vs. men) for a fun life unencumbered by kids.
Top post. “we measure contribution by income”! Can’t be bettered.
If society celebrated college GPAs and income regardless of gender, that would be one thing. It is unfortunate that we have to make the gender distinction. Arcade scores do not mention gender, only name and rank.
And yes, I think that education, profession, income are good measures of contribution, and society as a whole should not give two hot turds about my Mario Kart skillz – only my friends in the gaming community. Because Mario Kart does not help society! (but neither does it hurt it)
> It is unfortunate that we have to make the gender distinction
But there is a gender distinction. There is not a creature on this earth as universally despised and freely critisized as a low status loser male who “withraws” from (or is cast aside by) society (by women and higher status men alike – even Tyler Cowen does it in his “What the hell is going on?” post).
Are cat ladies held in any higher social esteem than neckbeards?
I think so. You or a loved one is more likely to be harassed/assaulted by a neckbeard than a cat lady.
“Let’s not forget that our vast fall in fertility seems due more to the changing preferences of women (vs. men) for a fun life unencumbered by kids.”
Sounds implausible. Do you have something to back that up?
It makes some sense though: women have much greater control of how many kids they have than men do.
Yes, but how many women are aiming for single motherhood?
The very short and simplified argument for much of the fall in fertility being driven in part by changing male preferences:
1. The marriage deal used to be: Man gets sex, woman gets money and kids. Now sex is much easier to obtain without marriage.
2. At the same time, norms changed to ask more in terms of child-rearing of men. These days, you’re supposed to push the pram, which, frankly, looks quite unmanly.
“These days, you’re supposed to push the pram, which, frankly, looks quite unmanly.”
It’s kind of cool to jump the curbs with the stroller. And the kids love it. The wife on the other hand just glares. Never accept a lousy stroller with small wheels.
“So those higher fem GPAs are more a sign of self-indulgence than social contribution, at least if we measure contribution by income.”
I’m not quite clear here. It seems a woman who gets a high GPA in a mid-level field and then goes on to make a solidly mid-level income is, well making a mid-level contribution if we measure contribution by income.
Unless we are talking about the very few people who make a living at ‘professional gaming’, no guys make any income off of video games. That would then measure in at a zero contribution.
Playtesters, designers, retail and other various subsidiary industries make income off video games.
(I know what you mean though, playing. It just sounds as funny to say “No guys make any income off of video games, other than ‘pro gamers’ ” as “No guys make any income off movies, other than actors”.)
Video gaming is coming around. Dr. Naismith did not make the income of Lebron James in the early days of basketball.
But Boonton is responding to a Hanson reference claiming that “[devotion] to working to pay for high fashion or travel” is not “really any less self-indulgent” than playing video games or practicing guitar for zero pay. The fashion industry employs people, just as the video game industry does, so the only comparison here really is the Employed Fashion Consumer versus the Unemployed Hobbyist.
So, they’re addicted to the socially acceptable form of heroin?
It’s not an addiction for most, in the sense that they don’t have control over it. It’s just a relatively cost-effective way to have a really good time.
I just spent 4 days alone replaying Dishonored and the immersion and flow were amazing. Other media and frankly most human interaction can’t compete.
Heroin probably also has some physiological effects computer games don’t have, but I’ve never tried it and I don’t have medical expertise.
The withdrawal is painful to deadly for one.
Interestingly, according to what left leaning games journalists spout, the VG audience is supposedly split 50:50 male:female (in time spent playing).
Which is probably true – this segment of the population, who as noted above, don’t even seem particularly enthusiastic game players, don’t affect the overall composition.
Let’s see if that message from them stays consistent when there’s this new opportunity to use this data against young men…
I’m not too surprised that guys who haven’t pursued an intellectual specialisation (college) and don’t have a job tend to spend more time on hobbies. VG are at least a much better hobby than television, reading smug middlebrow novels, buying and styling makeup and clothes, playing sports, drinking and partying (hobbies at least as self indulgent).
“Against young men”. Hahaha… #youngmengenocide
#nonsequitur
Hahaha. Seriously, how more pathetical can you losers get? Those academic bullies are using their data against poor, little me…
That comment pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it? That is their new place in society, being belittled and blamed for everything.
Blamed for everything? No, that’s the Jews
“That is their new place in society, being belittled and blamed for everything.”
If you know a better place for man scared by women, please, tell. And bullied by heavy, pointed data…
Playing sport is better. They improve the same things as computer games, and also increases general physical fitness. It’s still self indulgent — but vigorous sports at least gives you practice at overcoming certain kinds of laziness.
And sport might involve some social contact! The dude just above who finds video games better than “human interaction” is terrifying.
Some forms of gaming have social contact. I’ve been playing a weekly game, on and off, with a group of friends for the past 6 years. We met online initially but now it feels like we’re old friends and we’re from all over (where English is spoken).
We play paradox interactive grand strategy games. I think something like this is pretty common, informal or formal clubs, teams, guilds. It improves the the fun and challenge.
Who do you think finds video games better than “human interaction”? I don’t play them, personally.
“Corvo” just upthread.
True, physical fitness keeps you in good health, and sports are maybe the least boring way to stay fit, if not the most interesting games.
Sports are probably the best way to get injured and more or less permanently disabled
The cost of healthcare and lack of insurance was always a little thought in the back of my head whenever an opportunity for sporting came along. Video games is certainly a safer hobby than most, physically and mentally.
In your 50s, you might be better off taking up golf than taking up tackle football.
Sport is IMO part of a virtuous life, but I suppose if you go all the way down that road, virtue is self-indulgent.
How’s playing video games better than playing sports? The latter keeps you in shape & interacting with real people. The former keeps you growing into a friendless, pathetic blob.
Young man, there’s no need to feel down. I said, young man, pick yourself off the ground. I said, young man, ’cause you’re in a new town there’s no need to be unhappy. Young man, there’s a place you can go. I said, young man, when you’re short on your dough. You can stay there, and I’m sure you will find Many ways to have a good time.
Sorry, but it’s just how I feel.
Videogames are the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. They are the opium of the people.As the American dream turns sourer and sourer, a dispirited and disenfranchised populace gives up all notion of civic duty and withdraws to the modern opium dens while disaster looms for the country.
But as the outside world crumbles, Trump will make Virtual America great again!
Big-time gamer here. To TC’s question, it’s a problem, and a fair amount of men are aware of it. There’s a minor movement called MGTOW – Men Going Their Own Way. It’s a natural consequence of 3rd-wave feminism. Previous versions of feminism used to strengthen women, and now feminism is largely seen to push men down, especially white, straight, etc men. Guys ARE feeling this, whether they’re aware of this MGTOW thing or not. Sexual desire is a potent motivation for men, and when American women are either taken, or under the sway of the bad sort of feminism (fat-positive, entitled, unable to appreciate men socially or sexually) – why try? Or to enter the market and be competitive, women are getting a growing advantage (beyond level-playing-field). Besides, you’re one dongle joke or false sexual harassment claim away from having a career ruined. If you try to fight modern feminism you get harassed, called names, and accomplish zilch, so some men just check out of the world and into one that accepts them. Gamers tend to be pretty welcoming.
The ‘manosphere’ as it were has a couple different factions. MGTOW leaders, and the faction itself, are pretty benign. It’s largely about checking out until the world welcomes them again. You’ve got Pick-up Artists, which are pretty scummy people in my opinion about playing the system. There’s also the antifeminists, those who actively fight 3rd-Wave Feminism – they tend to favor the term humanist or egalitarian, since they’re almost always for equal rights, just not equal outcomes, Meninists who simply parody feminists and isn’t a real movement to my awareness, and of course there’s overlap in these camps and probably more factions that I’m not aware of.
“It’s a natural consequence of 3rd-wave feminism.Previous versions of feminism used to strengthen women, and now feminism is largely seen to push men down (…)”
People said it about every previous iteration of Feminism.
A discussion about 3rd-Wave Feminism is another topic, but I can point to *many* instances where it’s actively pushing men down instead of lifting women up. This discussion is about why men are checking out of the system and into vidya gaems. It’s beyond foolish to not take the input of a man who has checked out of the system and plays vidya gaems, and that man’s input, and many others, is the claim that 1) our culture does not value men or accomplishment enough, and 2) that a significant number of women out there in the dating scene are more trouble than they’re worth.
Your opinion does not have to agree with their claims, but you cannot deny them their opinions either. That’s their opinion, and that’s their response, and it’s a significant enough number of them to merit a MR blog-post, so there you go.
“our culture does not value men or accomplishment enough” Exactly! Men’s sports have pretty much vanished from media, and when you read the business pages it’s hard to find a man who’s in charge of anything any more. Successful male artists? Forget it.
“That’s their opinion, and that’s their response, and it’s a significant enough number of them to merit a MR blog-post, so there you go.”
Says you. I, for one, don’t think men just give up doing something useful of themselves because the Little Red-Haired Girl doesn’t notice them. The real problem here is the stagnation of middle class prospects brought for by the financialization of America’s economy and international competion. People can afford cheap videogames (or TV sets), but they can’t afford the kind of middle class life thei parents took for granted.
Oh yeah, men work 60 hour weeks for intrinsic satisifaction, I am sure. Getting a wife and a family has nothing to do with it. Take those away and I am sure men will work even harder, maybe 80 hours a week. You know, for the self fulfillment.
At CD, not all men are successful, and not all of them are capable of it. That’s a meaningless caricature. A major goal of men is to be with a woman, if that feels impossible to them then they will check out.
It might be pathetic and defeatist but that’s something that’s happening and appears to be happening more often than in the past. I agree with Sam that there is a cultural change that is part of this change, there are trade offs when changing culture, it’s not an incremental technology like progressives believe where you just switch into a more efficient gear.
“Oh yeah, men work 60 hour weeks for intrinsic satisifaction”
Yeah, making something out of oneself and being successful are so outmoded concepts (yet, lots of men do exactly that!). I mean, why should I work if I can be like a real man and whine, whine and whine about the women who won’t sleep with me instead (and yet women don’t value those “men”. Go figure!). The funniest part is the guy assuring us that he and his friends are quite successful (I am glad the Internet is a thing, there wouldn’t exist enough place in the real world for all the “successful” people stalking the virtual lands) and, somehow, his grievances against normal people (non-gamers) have something to do with the problems of unemployed people. Pathetic… Just and advice: Grow Up!
Why should I grow up? Seems like a lot of work for little return.
Yes, XVO, it is pathetic. Endless, verbose self-pity. Apparently the only reason you bozos can’t get laid is teh feminism.
My response was to S-the-S’s risible “our culture does not value men or accomplishment enough” which is precisely wrong, no? As you make clear, his and your *real* complaint is that men who accomplish nothing are not valued…
“appears to be happening more often than in the past” – any evidence? I know enough of my own family’s history to know that in every generation there have been a few losers, people who couldn’t hold jobs or form stable social bonds with other people. You just don’t hear much about them because they drift away, die early, and people are ashamed of them.
@John L If America’s people were actually getting poorer as whining* liberals have been saying forever, you’d see it in the indicators. But you don’t. House sizes are up. Car ownership rates are up. The “problem” here is not that young men can’t afford what the older generations could. It’s that spending your youth at work so that you can be defined as “successful” in this Jewish-dominated cultural environment is not a rewarding end in and of itself to a lot of men.
*I can define any complaining I don’t like as “whining” too.
The culture is shifting to one that values victims over people who achieve things. You’re just ignoring this. It’s no wonder we have so many cry babies. There are large well funded groups that support cry babies and their silly fantasies of discrimination and systematic unfairness. We need to be telling people, tough shit, you’re responsible for your own failings, not society, do something about it (or do the MGTOW thing and live silently in your parents basement until you die of obesity).
CD, how about the study mentioned in this very blog post to start?
John L – try to have an open mind and see something from someone else’s point of view, even if you think it is wrong. And try not to portray those who disagree with your mindset as losers. Stereotypes exist for a reason, but you’re painting with a mighty broad brush.
CD – I don’t see why society SHOULD value those who contribute nothing. So I can unlock all the achievements in Call of Duty – so what? Who did I feed? Whose life, including mine, did I make better? It’s a hobby for someone’s free time. I don’t want to celebrate loserdom or put the latest DOTA champion on the front page news – the gaming community already rewards its own well enough. I’d like to celebrate accomplishment! And at the very least I’d like our top officials and media to stop regurgitating the “Gender Pay Gap” lie, a decent compromise would be to celebrate accomplishment regardless of gender, and ideally men being men and women being women could ALSO be celebrated. Not holding my breath on any of these. Feminism is not the ONLY reason, that would be an oversimplification, but it is a factor. A major factor, I would say.
Grow up and work 80 hours a week! I need tax dollars! You mean your cubicle farm plot doesn’t give you life satisifaction? What kind of loser are you? I bet you can’t even get laid!
@ Ragar
Hahahaha I knew it was the Jews, it is always the Jews. Oh, God.
“The culture is shifting to one that values victims over people who achieve things” Nietzsche made exactly the same complaint 130 years ago, arguing that it was all the fault of Christianity for exalting victims. In other words, bullshit.
“how about the study mentioned in this very blog post to start?” What exactly? The OP mentions an ongoing research *project* with the hypothesis that drop in the 2000s in “employment rates for men with less than a four-year degree” was partly caused by the rising attractiveness of video games as a form of leisure. Your original claim appeared to be about men “checking out” of trying to form heterosexual bonds, a different thing. If you want to make an argument about changes in men “checking out” re women … I don’t think there are good historical statistics on getting laid, but you could probably find studies on household formation over time. All the social history I’ve read of past centuries shows plenty of men who never formed households, but you’re welcome to contest that.
” I need tax dollars! You mean your cubicle farm plot doesn’t give you life satisifaction? What kind of loser are you? I bet you can’t even get laid!”
Well, at least, it is what our loser friends are saying, isn’t? “I play videogames because no women will touch me– those Feminais are to blame!”
” try to have an open mind and see something from someone else’s point of view, even if you think it is wrong. And try not to portray those who disagree with your mindset as losers.”
Sorry, but I think there is not a nicer word than “loser” for men who are afraid of women and flee into their pathetic virtual fiefdoms.
John L: Yeah, every now and then I too forget that the MR comment section is full of these people. It does show you that there is no personal failing that cannot be blamed on teh Jews. Time to get back to work…
@John L
You didn’t address my point.
John L, if all you have is ad-hominem, I pity you. The blog post was “What are young men doing?” I gave an answer. What answer would you have preferred this fat single loser basement-dwelling neckbeard AM-Radio-listening woman hater* give? I didn’t say that most of them are afraid of women, just they don’t see any reward for them in the system. If you think the system’s fine, then make the reward more visible.
*None of this is true, but why let a fact get in the way of a good story?
“@John L
You didn’t address my point.”
Yes, I did address your “point” that young man don’t work because… Jews. I addressed it the same way I addresses the “points” of the guys telling me the Moon is a Martian spy satellite. I laughed at it.
“Yeah, every now and then I too forget that the MR comment section is full of these people. It does show you that there is no personal failing that cannot be blamed on teh Jews.”
To be fair, the Jews keep taking the last slice of pie from my fridge and blaming me. They also use up all the ink and neglect refilling the cartridges at office.
“I didn’t say that most of them are afraid of women, just they don’t see any reward for them in the system. If you think the system’s fine, then make the reward more visible.”
It seems visible enough to real men, thanks. Sorry, but I am not your baby-sitter.
@John L
The Jewish question is tangential to my point. Replace “Jewish” with “liberal” and my point is still the same. You have yet to address it.
“Loser” – Well, I think you probably *could* find nicer ways to describe shy young men who, if we follow the OP profile, did not attend university (for whatever reason (intellect / confidence / other)), enjoys playing videogames for 2 hours a day and is happy and by no indication abusive to people around them. If you have a decent vocab, and aren’t the aspirant bully that you appear to be here. (Or an aspirant “brute” to use a Tylerism).
If you need help and you’re having trouble, it might help think of the language you’d use to describe a shy young woman who doesn’t like approaching men, and isn’t approached by them, is not employed and spends 2 hours a day playing videogames or watching television, from which she gets a little bit of happiness. Then don’t use a different word out of sexism.
(Although this wouldn’t help if you’re the type to be inclined to be an arsehole to women as well. Which for all I know you may be.)
What’s a Real Man, John L? What’s a Real Woman? Maybe you shouldn’t force your definitions on others. Maybe you shouldn’t stereotype others. Maybe your opponents are worthy of being humanized, because they are humans.
Look, downthread is a lady named Tanya. She’s talking about women also being left out in the cold. Maybe they’re loser crazy cat ladies, but I doubt it. I get that you don’t care about loser men, but what about these women? Do you not care about them? This thing about equality, it goes both ways. I think these MGTOW people have an understandable reason to check out, and the women have an understandable reason to avoid them (Rape Culture, Patriarchy, etc)… I think these two groups would be happier together than segregated. If you don’t want to hear a grievance, I don’t know how to provide you a solution.
“Maybe they’re loser crazy cat ladies, but I doubt it. I get that you don’t care about loser men, but what about these women?”
Why, if only those devilish catwomen didn’t oppressed the losers so much to the point they must retreat to their fantasylands… hahaha. What were they thinking?
“I think these two groups would be happier together than segregated.”
No, they wouldn’t, but as long as I am not the one having to spend time with the whining boys, they have my blessing to try.
“enjoys playing videogames for 2 hours a day and is happy and by no indication abusive to people around them.”
And who are merciless being oppressed by… women. Hahaha Oh, God, this is gold!
“Although this wouldn’t help if you’re the type to be inclined to be an arsehole to women as well. Which for all I know you may be.”
I mean, I don’t even admit how much (and the Jews!) oppress me. I am a monster.
“The Jewish question is tangential to my point.”
Hahahaha. One just couldn’t make it up.
I wonder if I’m just being trolled at this point. Reasonable discourse is certainly impossible. When did I say men were being oppressed by women? You’re building a Terracotta Army of strawmen here. Tanya might suggest that women are also suffering in this state of affairs… I certainly would. Have you defined Real Men yet? What about Real Women? Have you yet begun to struggle with the fact that some of these people you’re mocking are highly professional, independent, and intelligent men *and* women?
John L, if you care about feminism, here are two suggestions. 1) Either never, ever, admit you’re a feminist, or 2) clean up your rhetoric and help reform its excesses. Like any political movement, it can overreach and have corruption. You sound dangerously unhinged and whatever factions you support probably do not want your endorsement. Over and out, Ghostrider.
“movement, it can overreach and have corruption. You sound dangerously unhinged and whatever factions you support probably do not want your endorsement.”
People already blamed the Jews, women who don’t think whining is attractive, cubicle farms, but I am the unhinged one… OK. Really, what solution you want for men afraid of … women? Lobotomy?
@Sam_The_Sham, basically, yes, it is now beyond the point at which you can doubt you are being trolled.
“the Jewish question” – awesome, Ragar. Sometimes you don’t even need to go Godwin.
“the Jewish question” – awesome, Ragar. Sometimes you don’t even need to go Godwin”
What we need is a Final Solution for the Jewish Question, then we can create a Thousand-Level Reich..
Jews were mentioned, time for histrionics.
@JohnL: There’s always competition for status, mates and money. Someone wins, someone loses. There’s no fairness, just like there is not in animal kingdom.
“Grow up” is a stupid, maybe you should be put into role of one of those loser men. Let’s see how happy you would be. It doesn’t solve anything. It’s just signals your allegiance. It’s easy to ally against loser men as nobody has anything to gain from defending them.
You are not an intellectual and what you say doesn’t improve the situation. I hope the labor market changes so much people like you can’t reproduce.
“Jews were mentioned, time for histrionics.”
Mentioned controlling our society, none the less. Hahaha.
” There’s always competition for status, mates and money. Someone wins, someone loses. There’s no fairness, just like there is not in animal kingdom.
“Grow up” is a stupid, maybe you should be put into role of one of those loser men. Let’s see how happy you would be.”
If I were to lose, it wouldn’t be because those oppressive women scare me and force me to play make believe. How pathetic! The funniest notion is the one that women and society at large lose anything when those cowards retreat from real life. What a riot!
“It’s just signals your allegiance. It’s easy to ally against loser men as nobody has anything to gain from defending them.”
I for one welcome my oppressive overladies… Seriously, you really don’t see how pathetic your whining is?
So this is why cowards scare by women keep playing make believe? Seriously, you are pathetic. Be a man. Lots of really poor people behave like men. There are people with real problems in the world.
Sam, why are you still trying to engage in conversation with that thing?
I’m a masochist and also a bit stupid, I guess. It is a topic I care about, and I don’t want to shut down dialogue – that only makes problems worse 🙁
JohnL is known for his snarky lib comments. Not sure on how sincere he is.
I’m not sure how many sincere Liberals there are (snarky or not) who use the term “real men”….
Oh, and the women don’t find all the whining sexy? How can they be so cold?
I will support Sam here a bit. Feminism seems less interested in equality these days, and demands submission instead. You know, never mind your 30 year effort for equality, admit you are the problem. Whatever a feminist just said, agree or you are the problem.
Perhaps this is typical of fringe movements, but I see this one in surprisingly high places. Well, science and academeia.
There are multiple types of feminism just as there are multiple branches in the ‘manosphere’ (what a retarded word). Unfortunately, it appears that 3rd-wave/intersectionality feminism has purged choice feminism/egalitarianism/2nd-wave feminism from its ranks – all of which happen to be forms of feminism I strongly support. From the top 3 results of “what is feminism” on google, I get this website https://bitchmedia.org/article/everything-about-feminism-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-ask . Read it. Read how it describes such idiotic, vile, bigoted scumbag people like Camille Paglia, Christina Hoff Sommers, Daphne Patai, and other feminists that I do not feel should be slandered or silenced. The 2nd result is from the Huffington Post, which… no, just no. I’m not going there.
Some of the manosphere, particularly the Pickup Artists, are inherently scum, just like the Radical Feminist branch. Some of them are just obnoxious crybabies, like the Men’s Rights Activists that harp on and on about circumcision (although they have valid points on the double standard in family and criminal court, which is *far* more generous to women) – but they’re also smaller and less obnoxious than the SJWs that know better than black people what black people need, or know better than gays what gay people need, or so on and so forth.
Edit to my last post: Neither feminism, nor the men’s equivalent, are homogeneous blobs. There are factions, some good and some bad in each. But definitely feminism is on top. I was not attacking you, anon, I just felt this comment was best suited to your comment.
Truth is, America has instituted a vicious and insidious caste system. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Most Americans are too dispirited to fight back and to demoralized to do anything with their lives. As for gender relations, America’s are very typical of crisis ages everywhere.
“There is something horrible about London at night; the coldness, the anonymity, the aloofness. Seven million people, sliding to and fro, avoiding contact, barely aware of one another’s existence, like fish in an aquarium tank. The street swarmed with pretty girls. By scores they streamed past him, their faces averted or unseeing; cold nymph-creatures, dreading the eyes of the male. It was queer how many of them seemed to be alone, or with another girl. Far more women alone than women with men, he noted. That too was money. How many girls alive wouldn’t be manless sooner than take a man who’s moneyless?”– Keep the Aspidistra Flying Orwell narates the troubles and tribulations of the loser protagonist in London during the Great Depression
“The Penguin Complete Sherlock Holmes”
LOL as the Brazilian attempts to chastise America for problems with caste and inequality.
You just can compare American economic royalism with Brazilian love for freedom and equality before the law.
You just can’t compare American economic royalism with Brazilian love for freedom and equality before the law. There is nothing in Brazil like the desperate masses rioting, killing cops or breathing fire against Blacks, women and gays. We beliee in our institutions because we know they are basically good and serve the common good, not the greedy.
Responsibilities ended my video game playing and there are plenty out there for those willing to take them.
To prove his case, Hurst would have to count how much time they spend watching TV. I suspect video games are displacing TV and cinema more than anything else, as evidenced by the how video games are catching up to total Hollywood revenues (and eclipsed box office two decades ago).
It’s not too surprising, really. The most expensive video games cost about $60 (and slightly older ones are closer to $20), but provide entertainment for dozens to hundreds of hours, and are thus a significantly better value than paying $12 for a 2-hour movie. Grand Theft Auto V made $800M in sales in its first 24 hours, the highest amount by any form of entertainment ever. Another data point: King.com, makers of the mediocre yet oddly popular Candy Crush Saga games, sold for $6B, 50% more than Lucasfilm.
Yeah. I’m thinking about the dropouts I knew 30 years ago, and they spent their time drinking beer, getting stoned, and watching a whole lot of TV. “Gamers” don’t seem much different, except maybe that the ‘net helps them find each other and build a common identity around self-pity.
This. Nothing new about this ‘trend’ except the internet allows us to all chat about it. On the web everything looks like a movement.
I can’t believe it took so long for someone to bring up TV.
I’m not surprised. When I got pregnant, I joined a popular parenting forum. The number of posts by unhappy young women about this issue were staggering.
The number of unhappy young men are also quite staggering. I’m an engineer, and of my college friends (so with equivalent degrees and money), only one has gotten married with children. Everyone else is either single or a childless couple.
“Those Judd Apatow movies lied to me! He didn’t shape up and get a suit-and-tie job as soon as I got pregnant at all!”
I think there’s a wonderful opportunity for sorting/matching here if what Tanya says is true. It doesn’t make me happy to see some of my friends unable to meet a woman for love nor money. They don’t have 6-pack abs, sparkling wit, or screw-you money, but they do have decent health, an education, and a job.
Hahahahaha. Ok, then.
My god you’re obnoxious.
The unemployed taint affects more than the uneducated. Elite college and law school graduates who had the misfortune of graduating during the great recession are experiencing continued misfortune even as the economy has recovered (as compared to those who graduated before or after the great recession). It’s as if they bear the scarlet letter L, for Loser. It created something of a scandal when some of the elite law schools surreptitiously paid all or part of the compensation of those graduates in order to maintain their rankings (determined in part by employment of graduates), although the schools claim that they did it not to maintain their rankings but out of a sense of obligation to the graduates (who paid $50,000, $60,000, or more per year in tuition for the privilege of a lifetime taint of the scarlet letter). I haven’t seen recent articles about them, but my understanding is that they continue to suffer much higher levels of unemployment and underemployment as compared to recent graduates. Is it because they suffer psychological trauma or because potential employers can only see the scarlet letter.
A typical career path for a graduate of an elite institution is to get a job with a prestigious employer (e.g. Goldman Sachs or McKinsey for undergrads or MBAs, “big law” associate jobs for law school grads), work there for 2-3 years and then look for outside options. For those who graduated during recessions, my guess is that far fewer of them got prestigious jobs right after graduation and that lack of a prestigious employer on their resumes affects their career opportunities after.
This. Big law functions like a cartel. Even those who land at a prestigious first time employer have little chance at a partnership. Those who never land the first prestigious job have no chance and don’t have the fall back options either.
Graduating during a recession has long been known to mess up your career.
Among other things, if you can’t find a good job you likely have to take a crappy job or two to pay the bills. Prospective employers, with bounded rationality and incomplete information (especially in these days of confirm-title-dates-and-pay “references”), use job quality as a proxy for candidate quality.
(They might know in general that more people have to take lousy jobs in a recession. But they can never know which candidates would have been able to get better jobs otherwise. Not to mention the human mind doesn’t handle peripherals very well — for example, conflict of interest disclaimers don’t help much. So yes, hiring managers may know there was a recession and that it forced some new grads into barista, retail or telemarketing jobs. But they still tend to “pigeonhole” people by their first jobs. Just goes to show that for your whole career as well as a chance meeting, there’s no second chance at a first impression.)
Totally unsupported hypothesis #1: Men are not strongly driven by social status and do not feel an intrinsic drive to opt into society.
Totally unsupported hypothesis #2: Men will opt into society to get a mate.
Relatively well-supported hypothesis #3: Women are delaying marriage and motherhood.
Given these, this societal trend was inevitable.
+1
I’d like to believe that a large number of men are Going Their Own Way, saying F U to a system which is trying to cuck them, but the evidence doesn’t support it. This is concentrated in the young and in the uneducated. When engineers start dropping out, it’ll be a real effect and I’ll welcome it. But I don’t think they will. People are strongly driven by a desire for money and status. As a half-Jew who inherited the Jewish money-saving sensibility, it often seems strange and irrational to me how people thoughtlessly spend their money.
I think status does having something to do with it: for the young uneducated man, living in a studio apartment and working at McDonalds isn’t much of a step up from living at home and having no job. But when he gets older and women start to express a desire to marry him, he’ll get off his ass.
Another thing it might be, I haven’t looked at the data or anything, is an effect of Hispanic immigration. Mexican immigrants have quite the work ethic, but their American-born children are another matter.
But when he gets older and women start to express a desire to marry him, he’ll get off his ass.
How do you think that could start happening?
There isn’t s lot of reason for the successful people to drop out.
Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World – With 174 million gamers in the United States alone, we now live in a world where every generation will be a gamer generation. But why, Jane McGonigal asks, should games be used for escapist entertainment alone?
https://www.amazon.com/Reality-Broken-Games-Better-Change/dp/0143120611
There are fewer things I find more annoying than the assumption contained in talks like this that my decisions need to be justified not by how much utility they provide me, but rather how much utility they provide to some third party who’s nominated themselves as my manager and wants to subject me to some sort of weird annual performance review.
Will not be easily solved? How about hunger? Mom stops cooking and cleaning and doing the laundry. And the rooms get let to someone who will pay.
This is called parenting of young men. I was watching some Kestrels last week, and the adult would bring some food, maybe a dragonfly. The young bird was waiting in the nest. The adult would land on a nearby branch with the food and the young bird would be encouraged to fly the short distance for a meal. The adults were constantly bringing food for the two chicks, and if they were away from the nest they got the food immediately. In a short time the adults are showing the young how to hunt, and a bit longer the young are hunting on their own.
Ospreys do the same thing. The crying is ignored.
Ask around among men who are working, raising families, doing lots of things. You will find two stories. Either they were eager to leave home and make their way, or their parents had to encourage them. It was part of growing up.
Is introspective self-indulgence (playing video games rather than working) after graduating from college any different than extrospective self-indulgence (working in the Peace Corp).
One looks better on the resume than the other.
One pays, the other doesn’t.
One assumes you have a social and economic support network; the other provides it as part of the job.
I knew a girl who flew to Uganda to hand out bed nets. As an engineer it struck me as inefficient .. but certainly it did more to reduce mosquito bites than flappy bird.
Peace Corps volunteers will at least get to practice language and interpersonal skills and build a network they might draw on later in life. Any sort of (safe, legal, ethical) activity that actually requires you to put on a pair of pants, leave the house and interact with others is going to be better for you in the long-run than one that doesn’t.
+1
So you’re suggesting they go play Pokemon Go instead of the video games inside their house? 😉
I’ve played from the first generation mmorg’s in 1999 through to the more recent re-release of Final Fantasy xiv. I used games as cheap entertainment while I FIREd (F’k it, retire early in Mister Money Mustache lingo). Now that I am retired early with money, I dont play as much. Go figure. I could write a book.
Yes, there are a lot of males who spend an astonishing number of hours per week playing games online. Sometimes they are supported by parents. Sometimes they are milking unemployment and cashing in their 401k. Sometimes it’s the mother of their children who are enabling them.
Low status males think they should have more status. Why? Because they are white and male and flunked out of college? They find the status they seek by being badass in a video game. They got the Ironborn Cloak of Stabbing before you did. Great. But now everyone has it. What next?
They will play as long as they are enabled to play. Turn off the power and allow the pantry to empty out. It might get their attention.
MGTOW is a result of a common law. With every action comes and equal and opposite reaction.
Marriage started out as a way to equally distribute men and women to one another in a way that provided for guarantee of paternity, growth in numbers and to have a legal heir with which to transfer accumulated family wealth. Women were focused on building as large a family as possible (few survived) and men were focused on building as big an infrastructure as possible. It was the most efficient division of resources for survival of the species. Back in those days – it’s wasn’t feasible for women to lead or to work outside the home because most environments in those days weren’t amenable to women’s weaker frame and lack of aggression (testosterone).
Technology has changed, the environment is safe for anyone to lead or work, thus marriage and birth rates have been declining the Westernized world over for many decades. Women’s demand for equality didn’t come until men made it safe for them to have equality. Those countries with the highest birth and marriage rates are patriarchal countries, but they too will – and already are – experiencing a rapid decline in marriage and birth rates.
The reason for mass immigration in Westernized countries has nothing to do with warmly accepting refugees and everything to do with frantic population replacement through the outsourcing of birth to the remaining patriarchal countries. Japan is the lone holdout and lost a million in population over the past few years.
Matriarchal societies have never and will never succeed. MGTOW will one day be the mainstream – as it should be. MGTOW is men realizing things they need to realize for their own personal survival. Survival is the only thing that trumps sex. When society becomes anti-male, as it has been for the past several decades, men go into survival mode.
See the big fight by women just recently to avoid having to be apart of the draft? That’s the kind of double standards and hypocrisy that drive more men to MGTOW. Women want equality without the expectation of responsibility – which is now blatantly obvious. Only men successfully brainwashed into blue pill gynocentric thinking by their single mothers and those men with natural , mangina like qualities will disagree. More and more, these manginas will become the minority as male psychology and a MGTOW like mindset progresses.
MGTOW isn’t a movement. It’s nature playing itself out.
Now this is interesting because when I was in school we learned a lot of the early societies were polygamist. The men of status had many women. That left a lot of young men out in the cold. They were eunuchs, slaves, or served in the military and had sex with each other.
Even today you see this. Donald Trump for example has despaired any number of young women 9f child bearing age from being available to men like you.
So I am not sure when this Golden Age of males occurred, really. America 1950?
*despoiled. But despaired works too I guess.
The beautiful part of my statements is that they require no proof. The proof is readily apparent. The proof is all about you. The proof is globally recognized. Are the people not asking, “Where are all the good men?” Feminists are even celebrating the fall of men.
Thanks to the internet, the MGTOW mindset will proliferate exponentially. We’re all seeing it happen in real-time. Though hardly a good comparison in an ideological sense, people said feminism was a joke when it began in earnest, too. MGTOW will proliferate to maturity far faster. Two or three decades at most.
I’m seeing evidence of the MGTOW mindset spreading to India. That’s huge. When the remaining patriarchal nations (the breeder nations) stop breeding, the outsourced supply of “immigrants” (new wage and tax slave in Westernized nations) will run dry, resulting in mass depopulation and economic suffering for all. The time to reverse this collapse has passed.
Feminism, the cancer that it is, will continue to spread. Wherever it goes, birth and marriage will decline. The Westernized world will gradually fall into social and economic chaos. You’re already seeing the undeniable beginnings. Some countries are even throwing feminists in prison to stave off their social toxicity.
I’m preparing now. In another decade, if necessary, I’ll have the funds needed to go off grid for life. The vast majority won’t be as fortunate. It’s unlikely that I’ll live long enough to witness the middle and end portions of this irreversible decline – so I’m just being cautious and preparing at this stage. My personal recommendation is that others do what they like. I’m not here to gather converts. I’d just rather people know the truth before they face the harsh realities of the lies.
” Some countries are even throwing feminists in prison to stave off their social toxicity.”
So enlightened leaderships… Saudi Arabia, that wonderful patriarchal country, forbids Jews from entering. You know, to stave of their Jewish toxicity. And prevents women from driving… because Allah is great. Seriously, you are pathetic.
In a nested comment thread, it is not at all easy to tell what you mean by MGTOW. My fault for skimming, I guess.
Men Going Their Own Way
“Only men successfully brainwashed into blue pill gynocentric thinking by their single mothers and those men with natural , mangina like qualities will disagree. More and more, these manginas will become the minority as male psychology and a MGTOW like mindset progresses.”
Hahahaha. I should not laugh at a psychotic breakdown, but hahahaha. “Tomorrow belongs to the losers” would be a great Nazi song, I guess.
“MGTOW isn’t a movement. It’s nature playing itself out”
You mean losers’ genes getting out of the genetic pool (“those Feminazis don’t want to touch me. Woe is me”)? I guess this is a good reason it is called “Evolution” after all.
Feminists aren’t having many children either. It is unfortunate but independent minded men are being selected out of the gene pool. The ones doing the reproducing are non-whites, poor whites, and conservative Christians. A bleak future is ahead.
Still, evolution takes a while. Gays, feminists, and independent-minded men are still going to be here in the next few generations.
If only an asteroid sped things up…
Sounds like those ‘Herbivore’ men in Japan.
I have two beautiful and smart daughters. I’m gratified that the world is open to their success and prosperity.
But all the rhetoric designed to encourage our girls has had the opposite effect on our boys. Fewer are going to college. Many turn to drugs, crime, or wasteful uses of their time. Many do not aspire toward careers, but merely ways to pay their bills.
When young women are marginalized, they become dependent, pregnant, poor or depressed. When young men become marginalized, they become destructive and homicidal. We might want to rethink our strategy for encouraging progress in our youth.
This is why we need equality. And as noted above, more effective parenting – no need for parents to enable idle children. I don’t want to see women dependent on men, barefoot and pregnant. I don’t want young men shooting up schools or giving up on life. More people are seeing the system as rigged, that the american dream is dead, etc. People need meaning in their life, opportunity, and justice.
@Sam.
Equality is flawed concept. Read Robin Hanson’s Inequality Talk Is About Grabbing. There’re plenty of aspects of inequality status, looks, health, length, genes, whatever. The only thing we focus on is inequality of money.
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2013/08/inequality-is-about-grabbing.html
“We don’t much discuss the inequality of rich foreigners, because it is much harder to grab their stuff. We don’t much discuss inequality of those with unusual artistic abilities or sexual attractiveness, because we can’t directly grab their advantages and while we might try to grab their material goods to compensate, they don’t have that much, and the grabbing would be hard. (Also, such folks have more social status to resist with. For foragers, status counted lots more than material goods for influence.)”
“My favored theory is an application of homo hypocritus: our forager ancestors developed the ability to express and enforce social norms, and then developed rich and subtle abilities to coordinate to evade those norms. One of those norms was that foragers weren’t supposed to grab stuff from each other just because they wanted the stuff, or just because that stuff was easy to grab. But they did have norms favoring sharing and equal treatment, and so it was ok to talk about who might be violating such norms, and what punishments to apply to violators.”
Also:
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/09/homo-hypocritus-ovulates.html
“I’ve argued that central to human nature are deep, subtle, and powerful abilities to give the impression we are doing one thing, while actually doing another. A key example of this is our unique female ability to appear to be always fertile, in order to overtly attract “dads,” while actually covertly attracting “cads” in rare fertile times, when norm violations matter most. (Cads offer sperm, while dads offer other supports.) Some, but not all, men can see through this illusion, to better coordinate norm violations. The difficulty of this task helps women screen out unwanted cads, and male and female unconsciousness about all this helps hide norm violations.”
We are all made of the same DNA.
Also related:
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2014/09/pretty-smart-healthy-privilege.html
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/12/tax-the-tall.html
Also I’m not saying all egalitarianism is bad or inequality is a bad concept. Just it is flawed in ways that are not obvious unless you look deep into it.
I think it would be a rare egalitarian who was shocked to learn that the world has more than one kind of inequality.
And no one should be surprised that history, and the world today, are full of strategy and counter strategy in response to those inequalities.
Nature would be falling down on the job if there was just one biological niche, even for one species, especially for a social species.
Willits, these “marginalized young men” are just playing videogames. Tone down the fearmongering a little bit.
In Japan the media and society have long considered variations on this to be an enormous societal ill, with terms ranging from parasite single (パラサイトシングル), which implies more “could move out but chooses not too,” closer to the examples here to hikikomori (引きこもり), a term that implies much more negative antisocial traits and negative disposition (something rejected by the examples and evidence in this article.) In Japan, the issue at least of parasite singles is viewed as widespread among women as well, especially because of the enormous pressure in Japan for women who get married to quit jobs and focus on their family. (As opposed to the US, where the pressure is more for women to “do it all.”)
People should note that while people in their 20s with this lifestyle are quite reasonably happy, as happy as their peers, he also seems to claim finding a sharp drop off in happiness in future years (or at least seems to imply that.) Perhaps it is more the fable of the ant and grasshopper.
Fascinating comments to a dull blog post that hits home. Engineer here who lost oil gas job and then traveled world reading Rothbard and Rand looking for utopia only to find it in gaming. I joke to fam friends that I finally safe legal way around income tax. And I do have sympathy for the anti feminist argument. Modern man in my view is a nuetered tax paying peasant who likes being told what to do to avoid personal responsibility for any decision (it’s ur fault Obama, build a wall Trump, feed me wife, take 1/3 of my income state and kick back 1/4 later)
The “problem” is collective and talking about contributions to ‘society’ of which there is no such thing. I’d rather game for hours instead of sit like a slack jaw at a movie or a slave for a state or boss.
On a happier note I long for the day when an online currency ( Bitcoin, CS GO skins, WoW gold) replace nation state money and our virtual freedom becomes maximum freedom.
Sure. When someone tells you how much WoW gold it will take to fly to Ibiza, well, that’s when you figure out nothing has changed and you are still f*ckd.
So much handwringing. Isn’t this what you wanted? A permanent underclass of poor men just barely kept out of criminality by entertainment? And the moralizing about video games, hilarious. Would you prefer they do what other young men do, burn towns, mass rape, join violent insurgencies or organized crime? Never mind, I see you’re all ahead of me, importing “refugees” to do these jobs american lads just won’t do.
In the meantime, you should definitely chase these men down into their refuge and start calling them racists and sexists for not having perfectly representative video games. And don’t look at me, I told them to get off their asses and string up the people victimizing them. But, I think things will have to get worse, and worse still before they get better.
Hahaha. Oh, God.
Historically, men traded money for feminine companionship. Now manufacturing jobs are gone. Women displace men in service jobs and outnumber men in college. So men are comparatively poorer. They will never earn enough to buy the affection a college grad, and choose to drop out of the rat race.
Conversely, women no longer need men’s money; they want masculine companionship. The sexual revolution permits short-term relationships. Now women are demanding sexy, exciting men. The hipster barista and buff lifeguard get way more sex than the nerdy engineers.
In sum, the terms of trade have shifted to favor women. Historically, women dropped out of the labor market and worked to attract men. Now men are dropping out and working to attract women. This isn’t a problem unless you consider externalities of fatherless children.
“Now women are demanding sexy, exciting men. The hipster barista and buff lifeguard get way more sex than the nerdy engineers.”
When people talk about “sexy, exciting men,” they aren’t talking about hipster baristas.
Agreed. Baristas no, bartenders hell yes
A guy who has achieved the status of an alcoholic drink maker. Now there’s a catch. Also, the only thing that separates him from a barista is that the drinks he makes have alcohol in them. Oh, I get it.
The terms of trade have shifted to favor successful men (they always have but now even more so).
The increased economic success of women has increased their demand for successful men and decreased their supply.
This is a win for successful men and a loss for women and less successful fellows.
“This is a win for successful men and a loss for women and less successful fellows.”
Maybe for late Gen X-ers it is. But I see something different happening with Millennials. The girls have spent their lives competing against boys in a way past generations have not. A good number of them seem uncomfortable with men who are ambitious because it brings up the old ghosts of school competition with boys. They prefer slackers.
The videogamers are employing a sexual strategy. I know guys like this who have menial jobs at liquor stores or restaurants. So long as they look reasonably good and are amusing, they don’t lack for female companionship.
It would be a sad comment on the makers of the video games if they didn’t have some dedicated fans like these guys.
But seriously, I fail to see the difference (except for snobbery) between the guy playing video games and the guy addicted to art house cinema, or modern literature, or obscure cuisine, or even blogging! Tastes are not monotonic nor should we want them to be. A new form of entertainment has been created and we should welcome this addition to the human corpus. It is rare that a new form of art is created, probably the last before this was rock music which created a curiously similar reaction to many of the comments above.
The desire to conquer and dominate is being successfully corralled into a virtual fulfillment of those desires. Also look at following sports teams as a proxy for tribal involvement. Consider them akin to a permanent welfare class. Better having them play video games than taking to the streets.
@JohnL is not an intellectual. But then again it’s very easy to attack loser men as nobody has anything to gain from defending them. I suppose he thinks he is one of the “good guys”. But then again evolution never built us to understand but it built us to win. Conservative or liberal or something else.
I’m happy to live in a culture where there are less people like JohnL (no matter what his politics). Just less mean people. I mean it’s easy to to believe in anything when the costs are not levelled upon you (eg. anti-vaxers). It’s only when the person himself pays the costs of his beliefs, it’s not so easy.
My hope rests on people like Scott Alexander and Robin Hanson who know *exactly* what’s going on.
“Just less mean people.”
So is this why cowards scare by women keep playing make believe? Seriously, you are pathetic. Be a man. Lots of really poor people behave like men. There are people with real problems in the world.
Acting like a real man is done out of necessity. Not having to engage in these responsibilities is a luxury that is afforded to many in this day and age. If I don’t have to be a “real man” to be happy then I won’t. Seems like more effort than it is worth. What’s the incentive otherwise?
Really? One needs external incentives to stop whining? Come on.
There are internal ones to stop whining?
Well, I have, but I don’t like to behave like an idiot, so that’s it. Maybe it’s hardwired or has to do with upbringing. In this case, they probably are lost causes anyway.
I think I’ve seen similar comments in regards to the black underclass.
Probably you did. I would say most Blacks (and lots of Whites) have problems that are worse and more real than “girls have cooties” (as you can see in all comments complaining about the unbearable burden of the White Male Gamer and how they are oppressed by Blacks and Women). Surely some Blacks (and Women, Gays and whatever) need to be slapped hard, but it seems a particularly widespread problem about the guys whining about being oppressed by… women.
I think some of these white gamer guys may agree with you that there needs to be some “slapping” done but they are (or feel) powerless to do so in current structure of society. Fair enough to your statements that there are bigger problems out there.
How would you suggest that these guys “man up”? What do they need to do and why should they do it?
They actually don’t need to man up they have always been out there and they aren’t hurting anyone. I just wish they would stop whining about women and predicting doom
“How would you suggest that these guys “man up”? What do they need to do and why should they do it?”
To stop with the whining would such a great start.
So once they stop “whining” then what
“So once they stop “whining” then what”
Then they are men, but there are no medals for that, I must warn you (or for being a woman, by the way). I verified. Adults don’t find it difficul to understand, though.
“Be a man”. How do you even know I’m a man? Is that your default answer to things? I’m sure Tyler Cowen became a great intellectual by just saying that. Instead of just debating with people he also used fists. I’m sure he calls people cowards too as well.
How do you know you are not pathetic?
I’m sure if a meteorite comes to our planet, you’ll just tell it to be a man yo.
Trust me it isn’t just “loser men” who know what’s going on.
“. Instead of just debating with people he also used fists.”
My powerful fists hurt you through your screen?
“Trust me it isn’t just “loser men” who know what’s going on.”
I guess some doctors know, too.
“I’m sure if a meteorite comes to our planet, you’ll just tell it to be a man yo.”
If it starts whining about being oppressed by women and how they scare him, yeah, I probably will.
“If it starts whining about being oppressed by women and how they scare him, yeah, I probably will.”
Obviously that is impossible by physics.
Good, hypothetical problem solved. Now, how do we solve the real one and make the crazies shut up in their unlit basements?
Lol, Real Men do not think people whining on the internet is a real problem.
Question for Tyler: Do video games make these boys more brutish or less?
the elite have made white males 2nd class citizens in favor of nonwhites and females…the better to attain increased GDP via population growth and increasing the size of the pool of available workers and consumers…
and so one way white males can resist and fight back is by participating as little as possible in this livestock-ranch economy that is being crammed down our throats by the elite…
the West is a ponzi scheme economy forced upon us against out will…
and this nation is a prison of sorts, a prison designed to generate corporate profits…opting out is a good option for the 2nd class citizens that are white males…
another way to resist is to avoid college…and avoid being indebted
Hahahaha. It is priceless.
Apparently, “hahaha” is an appropriate response to everything
hahaha
When someone tells a great (even if involuntary) joke, yes, it is.
unintended would be a far better word choice than involuntary, child
Come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time I saw a white male on cnbc. Or cspan!
I’m one of these guys currently. Out of work the past few years, no motivation to do much of anything, living off of savings.
I had a decent career, good group of friends, and was someone who was “going places” before, and just lost interest in doing things. No romantic success, but that never really bothered me until others started bringing it up. I always blamed myself though – never understood all the anger that seems to consume a lot of the guys in similar situations that I read about on the internet. Always just thought I was lazy.
Finally went to the doctor a few months ago figuring that hey, maybe this is worth getting checked out, because it definitely isn’t a normal human existence. Turns out I had extremely low testosterone. Like, according to my doctor, some women have higher testosterone levels than I tested at. Doc put me on antidepressants, and I’ve just started getting testosterone injections. Its supposed to take a while to kick in, but I’m already starting to want to do things again, so hopefully I’m on the right track.
Anyways, who knows, maybe these guys are just clinically depressed and low-T like me?
P.S.
Never got into the video games though – I just browse the internet, reading blogs, newspapers and magazines all day. So maybe my situation is different.
Exercise and proper diet is the most effect anti depressant in my experience but having the motivation to do it is the hard part.
I’m in a similar situation, haven’t felt like going to a doctor about it (yet?). Never mind the video games, I wonder if older folks have really grasped that anyone with a modicum of tech savvy has access, for free, to every book, movie, tv show and music ever produced, or at least the ones worth digitizing.
Its definitely worth getting to the doctor. I wish I’d done so when I first started feeling like this a few years ago. I’ve got a much deeper hole to pull myself up out of now because of how long I delayed doing anything about it, but at least I know what went wrong and am beginning to make some real progress.
Just remember, it isn’t normal as a (I’m assuming you’re a youngish) male to have no interest in going out, being with friends, looking for romance or pursuing a vocation…I mean, unless you’re a heroin addict or something (which I assume you aren’t).
Again, get to the doctor. If only because I’ll feel like I accomplished something today if you make that appointment!
It is perfectly normal and a consequence of having too much neanderthal blood
It may not be the worst thing in the world but ‘perfectly normal’ it ain’t
Re: not being angry, probably more typical than you think. I think most guys who aren’t that romantically successful *get* that it’s mostly about them having a bit of shyness, and a bit of bluntless / lack of charm, and not being as driven for it.
If you have a friend who really is very romantically successful, it’s really immediately obvious that it’s because they are willing to spend a lot of time on it, and just are very direct at going out and say a lot of cheesy charming stuff and silly jokes and the like. It’s quite helpful to see that they will be successful even if you know they have a lot of personality problems, aren’t that responsible or successful, etc. because then it really cuts through the idea that romantic success is an index for personal quality, which is sadly what some men feel.
And some people just enjoy being angry / trolling really.
Not too dissimilar for the partnerless and divorcee women who tend to blame everything on men’s supposed superficiality and focus on physical beauty. They know at the core it’s really because they actually lack much charm and energy, can’t diffuse nervousness by being welcoming and just generally aren’t good at using their personality to encourage and facilitate approaches and interaction by men who are of their level. Just people enjoy being angry about things.
Au contraire, I think this IS a solution. To the problem of how to keep the long-term unemployables more or less happy on a low budget, and still engaged with at least some of the species.
Jason Bayz and Fazal Majid also make good points (this comment tool could do with an upvote mechanism).
Yes, my youngest brother is doing this, at the age of 26. It is possible that he will end up getting a job due to pressure from my parents, but he appears quite happy with his current life, and evidently would like to continue doing the same thing for as long as possible.
This isn’t a solution because men fight and die in wars, maintain the military-industrial complex, serve as police, etc. If you discard and misuse your young men, you will eventually be vulnerable to military defeat and takeover by other groups of men who don’t geld their young men.
Are you gelded bro?
No, I’m not. I’m not sure if gelded young men are able to even recognize this problem, let alone address it. That’s why they’re gelded. Farmers and breeders geld their male animals so they’re more easily manageable and less of a problem. The problem here is that there are other farmers and breeders around who, by not gelding their males, can use them to kill you and take your stuff. So solving one problem just creates another.
To young men in this situation this old geezer says: keep on gaming. Don’t listen to idiots like John L.
If being “successful” as defined by society were such a good deal they wouldn’t need to shame and insult you. Do they need to convince you that 70 degree weather is better than 40 degree weather? No, because it is obviously true. If you have a mantra society finds it necessary to repeat endlessly, there’s a good chance that mantra isn’t true or is a half-truth. “Diversity is our strength” is a good example.
They say that no man ever says on his deathbed that he wishes he had spent more time at the office. As I approach retirement age, I see more and more why they say it. When you get old you see how transitory and ultimately useless ‘status’ is. Don’t worry about what rich men think of you. Enjoy your life, for you only live once.
*was
@ John L
I gotta say, I don’t think I saw one substantive comment from you, here
@ John L
The point is that what many, if not most, women are offering men just aren’t all interested in getting. Ever why you see so many women complaining that men are only after sex? Logically, that’s because what those women offer make them good for nothing more than sex. It’s really rather simple, all your chortling aside
What many, if not most, men are offering women just aren’t all that interested in getting. It’s really rather simple…
You are, of course, correct. The difference is that what young men are interested in is realistic and that what women are interested in is unrealistic. If a young man has zero chance at being what a woman wants then he is going to exert absolutely no effort in even trying. How did you manage to miss that point so interwoven into this entire thread?
What I hear in this thread, and what I hear in a great many other threads, is men moaning about how much better it was when women stayed where they belonged.
Where is the view forward that a woman can support?
How do we have a conversation about where a balance may have tipped too far without name-calling and absurd generalizations that just build fear, anger, and frustration instead of letting us come to the table as people who can disagree but still work together and respect each other?
I look around and I see how terribly terribly fragile the gains of feminism are – how many men believe women are fundamentally inferior to them and should be limited and controlled by men for the greater good (or just for their own good.) So yes, I am a feminist. I don’t know how to be anything else in a world where a woman can be jailed for being raped.
So what I missed was the persuasive argument that what men want is realistic and what women want is unrealistic.
It’s pretty simple. What men want is someone reasonably cute, not fat and with a good personality. Most men are fine with temporary sexual relationships but for a long-term commitment that is going to include something permanent, almost always kids. As for women, the research strongly indicates they want a man who makes substantially more money than do they. If you have men and women making the same amount of money then this mathematically restricts some portion of men from the mating pool.
What women fail to understand is that it is men who create the civilization women enjoy. Women do not build and maintain civilization, men do. Since you have expressed interest in a dialogue what we have, here, is a sort of negotiation where one party brings something to the table and the other offers something in return. Men offer women civilization. What do women offer in return?
Not sure to what your comment about being for having been raped. Are you talking about Muslim countries? Or are you talking about regretting sex and then being jailed for false rape accusations? Here’s a challenge for you: define rape. Your definition should be A) unitary B) coherent C) nontautological D) concise, let’s say fewer than 30 words.
Why do I pay taxes? Because if I don’t *men* with guns come for me. Men. You get your gynocentric welfare state solely because of male violence. Are there women who sere in government function with guns? Sure, but they only do so effectively because there are men there. The day all armed government agents are women is the day I stop paying taxes.
Here’s a thought experiment:
Imagine a city-state where all armed government agents are men. Actually, we don’t have to imagine it as the overwhelming amount of armed government agents in history have been male.
Now, imagine a city-state where all armed government agents are women. Such an entity would fall apart in weeks. BTW, this is a great thought experiment to apply to any sort of human endeavor. Imagine if all scientists were men and, then, imagine if they were all women. Engaging in these thought experiments should give you insight into how the world really works.
As to your statement about being feminist I will tell you how that looks to most men: feminism is not about equality, it is about envy, resentment and ingratitude. Feminist envy that men for building civilization, resent that they cannot and are ungrateful that men do it for them. That is really what feminism is all about – envy, resentment and ingratitude. When you call yourself a feminist that is what most men think of you.
Most men do not believe women are inherently inferior. Any man who isn’t an idiot can see women tend to be different than men, with different strengths and weaknesses.
The entire context, here, is the changes in male behavior as a consequence in the changes to the overall social environment. Can you specify similar changes in female behavior?
@ John L
I believe it was Janet Bloomfield who noted that “what men want matters”. And if women aren’t offering what men want then the consequences of that lack will be quite significant.
If you account for the worthlessness of most college degrees, and the debt that most college grads have incurred, these young men have probably years to enjoy playing video games and they’ll still be ahead financially when they get full time jobs.
Oh, boy. I guessed when I saw this post that it would degenerate into a huge festival of dudes complaining about women (an all encompassing, undifferentiated mass) and spouting their bizarre sociological theories and lingo no normal would ever use.
But it has spiraled way beyond my hopes. Well done, guys. You’ve solved the real reason people like to play fun games.
I’m guessing you’re the sort ho thinks that anyone disagreeing with them is a complainer. After quickly scrolling down the comments I couldn’t even find one instance of men complaining about women – that’s all in your head.
I’ve seen a good deal of petty MRA shitposting over the years. This comment thread is not an example of such! Many of the readers seem to be reactionary and replying to strawmen of their own creation.
Yeah, the whole MRA thing is a crock of shit. There are no such things as “rights”. Might makes right. The simple explanation for the behaviors we are discussing is that the men in question are on the shit end of power and are responding accordingly. This is really simple stuff to understand.
Asher: take a look at bloodyshovel.wordpress.com.
haha – try harder.
Here’s what….you said.
“What women fail to understand is that it is men who create the civilization women enjoy. Women do not build and maintain civilization, men do.”
Barbarism is a life choice
That’s not even a meaningful response. Aristotle noted that some men only respond to rhetoric, your comment don’t even rise to that level. I wonder what Aristotle would have said about snark, hell, maybe it’s a modern invention and wasn’t around in his day. On second thought, it probably was around and people who engaged in snark were not allowed to express themselves in public without mockery and ridicule.
But, yes, men create civilization, women do not. That’s simply an observation.
If you notice I asked Steph a straightforward question: what do women offer men in return for men providing them with civilization. It’s a simple and direct question, however, she has not answered it. Presumably, you are not a woman but maybe you could try giving an answer.
You make a statement that men provide civilization without any proof. It is up to you to provide a basis for your statement.
But here’s your statement, falsified. This woman was an important artist. She helped create civilization.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A4the_Kollwitz
Here is the story of one of the discoverers of CRISPR. She is an important scientist. She is helping create civilization:
http://www.nature.com/news/the-quiet-revolutionary-how-the-co-discovery-of-crispr-explosively-changed-emmanuelle-charpentier-s-life-1.19814
I could go on, but it’s not worth spending too much effort rebutting nonsense.
Civilization is rules, order, stability. Men, not women, provide that.
The only possible meaning to your last comment, if there even is one, is that my noting that men, not women, create civilization is a complaint. Given the context, it would take very poor reading comprehension or willful intellectual dishonesty to construe it that way. My point is a direct response to Tyler’s question in the title of this blog post. Tens of millions of men have taken a look at the deal women are offering and have decided to withdraw their consent from the social contract between the sexes. I merely pointed out that what men offer women are taking for granted and, thus, men are withdrawing their consent.
I am simply pointing out what is happening. It would take someone really stupid or a total liar to construe it otherwise.
My money’s on you being a slimy, sleazy liar.
You aren’t merely pointing out anything. You are merely making statements that aren’t even wrong, demanding that I rebut you, and calling me a sleazy liar.
Why don’t you try a few more argumentative fallacies while you are at it? There are plenty more ways to up your game.
Here is your initial response:
haha – try harder.
Here’s what….you said.
“What women fail to understand is that it is men who create the civilization women enjoy. Women do not build and maintain civilization, men do.”
There’s nothing there. You are projecting as it is you who are offering incomplete thoughts and meaningless drivel. I simply decided to take your comment and interpret its most logically possible meaning. The most logically possible explanation being that my noting that “men creating civilization” was a complain, which it very clearly was not. If that was your implication, and that’s really the only potentially logical one, then you are either really stupid or a liar.
Again, my money is on you being a liar.
Basically, you’re full of shit
You understand that what you’re calling “bizarre sociological theories” is just supply and demand applied to human relationships, right?
Let’s take me, as an example: I am not interested in investing in a relationship with a woman who is fat, has tattoos and body piercings or has brightly-colored hair. Given the demographic explosion of women meeting at least one of those descriptions I do not put any effort into looking to invest in a relationship. Does that make me a complainer?
Yes
How is that “complaining” ?
I choose not to participate in something I have no interest in… making me a whiner and a complainer? Wouldn’t this apply to every non-participatory decision?
Then you and I have radically different notions of what “complainer” means. Personally, I very rarely use the term as I consider it so grossly overused as to be virtually meaningless. When I do use it I refer to someone who talks badly about an activity in which they freely participate in an ongoing manner. For example, someone who constantly says bad things about his co-workers but who continues to work at a company because he makes 150k/year and doesn’t want to make the effort to change jobs. Let’s take someone who is a vocal vegetarian and is invited to dinner with people who know him very well, meaning he assumes they know he is one. He shows up and every dish has at least a little meat so he declines to eat. When asked why he isn’t eating he simply responds that he is a vegetarian.
By your implicit definition refusing to eat meat makes him a complainer. As HL pointed out, your definition makes anyone who declines to participate in any activity a complainer.
Now, the current topic is a bit more complicated than my analogy, and the main complicating factor is the welfare state. The welfare state is a massive net transfer of resources from men to women. Tens of millions of men are involved in that welfare state through no choice of their own and they receive nothing in return for that participation. What you are seeing is said men withdrawing themselves and their consent from that welfare state through what means they have available. Again, all they are doing is refusing as much as possible to participate in what is, essentially, the rape of men.
Don’t like the comparison to rape? Tough. Women don’t get to decide that, men do.
I have no interest in women who are fat but I’ll take all those tattooed, brightly colored haired with a few body piercings off your hands, bro. Although it’s true that they don’t usually make for good LTR material. Pretty fun sex partners though. You’re missing out.
Nah, it just sounds like you don’t think of women as humans.
I am also not interested in investing into a (romantic) relationship with you or any other man, whether tattooed or no. I guess that sounds like I don’t think of men as humans.
So, what you’re saying is that not being interested in a relationship with a woman who has tattoos means I don’t view women as humans. I would like to know the twisted logic that led you from premise to conclusion.
FWIW, I reject the term “human” as being meaningful because it has come to be nothing more than a placeholder in positions that are bereft of argument. When I see someone use the term “human” I automatically assume they are engage in some sort of intellectual dishonesty and write off everything they are saying. Still, it’s fun to stick around a see them try and make something of their muddled claims.
So, care to define “human”? Your definition should be A) unitary B) coherent C) nontautological D) concise, say 30 words or fewer. Go
Let’s say a woman doesn’t want a relationship with a man who works a part time minimum wage job and spends the rest of his time sitting in his mom’s basement playing video games. Does declining to express an interest in such a man mean that woman does not view men as human beings? Serious question. FWIW, I tell women with significant body art that they are the female equivalent of a man who is underemployed and sits in his mom’s basement playing video games.
The responses are quite amusing.
People have their opinions on what’s attractive, and I’m fine with that. I know I do too.
But saying that essentially all women now (or soon will) have tattoos, are fat or have piercings implies a certain level of disgust, if simply because it’s not even close to being true. So why say it? I have the strong suspicion that anyone who says it tends to classify all women together, and unfavorably.
Likewise, saying that all dudes are fat and hang out in basements is false, and implies the woman saying it has a certain hatred for men. I’d run like hell from any woman who said something like that on a date because it means A) she makes unfavorable caricatures of men that imply she finds them disgusting (and probably will view me this way B) she probably isn’t any fun.
Luckily, my wife has lots of tattoos (which I like) and I play games (which she likes). We are both thin though, so I guess we aren’t totally disgusting.
Didn’t even try to answer my question. What do women offer men in return for men building civilization for them. Answer the fucking question
Again, I don’t need to play by your rules and half-assed rhetorical tricks.
But for fun, treating someone like a human means, in my book, abiding by the golden rule and not making blanket assumptions that they are someone less than me.
Also, your definition of civilization above is…….rather unusual. Try looking in a dictionary. Anyway, by your definition, women help provide civilization since they have and still do a majority of childcare. That’s a huge part of social stability. But perhaps you are a petty authoritarian, so this didn’t occur to you.
It must be very tiresome being so angry and afraid. You should try getting out more and maybe trying to figure out how your life got off track.
Good luck!
A) You clearly don’t understand the concept of rhetoric. Asking a question is dialectic, not rhetoric. The rules of dialectic have been around since well before Socrates.
B) What assumption have I made about anyone? I simply lack interest in a relationship with women who are fat, have significant body art and dye their hair garishly. This tends to be a general male preference. That you interpret this as me making assumptions indicates you have a significant deficit in basic reasoning skills.
C) The dictionary? Where do you think the dictionary comes from? Dictionary fairies? Here’s an experiment: open a dictionary and find even one definition that contains an argument for an entry. Dictionaries are to word usage what training wheels are to bicycles.
D) Ah, “being angry and afraid” – now *this* is a textbook example of rhetoric. You are simply insinuating without offering example or argument for your insinuation, that *is* rhetoric. It’s a neat rhetorical trick for dimwitted people, after all, all you have to do is claim anyone disagreeing with you is “angry and afraid” and you can simply ignore anything they argue by claiming its a manifestation of their anger and fear. This is what rhetoric looks like.
I would also point out that what you are doing is a scaled-down version of what the Soviets under Stalin did to dissident, which is to label anyone who dissented as mentally ill. Yeah, you’re not explicating that but the reference to anger and fear sort of implies it.
Stalin much? Yeah, I understand that this is just rhetoric but, hey, you broke the rhetoric ice.
But since you brought up emotions, it’s important to note the primary emotion behind my involvement in this thread, namely, contempt. I have complete contempt for intellectual dishonesty, the sort evinced by the likes of yourself and John L throughout this comment thread.
Anger? No. Fear? That doesn’t even make sense. No, what I fell is total contempt for your manifest intellectual dishonesty.
mr mcknuckles
I have answered TC’s question. You don’t have to disprove it, however, what you do have to do is offer a competing theory. Since my theory has general predictive value that makes it truth until a better theory come along: that’s all truth is, the best available explanation for something.