President Trump, like President Obama before him, point out the low unemployment rate as a measure of success.
What they don’t point out are masses of people on welfare via fraudulent disabilities, people in school wasting money in dead-end retraining exercises, people who have simply given up looking for a job, and people in forced retirement needing Social Security payments to survive.
A team of researchers from Princeton, the University of Chicago, and the University of Rochester discusses another class of individuals who are not working but are not counted as unemployed: People, primarily young men who are addicted to games. For such individuals, games provide a fantasy world that is far more enjoyable than the real world.
Please consider their report on Leisure Luxuries and the Labor Supply of Young Men.
Between 2000 and 2015, market hours worked fell by 203 hours per year (12 percent) for younger men ages 21-30, compared to a decline of 163 hours per year (8 percent) for men ages 31-55. These declines started prior to the Great Recession, accelerated sharply during the recession, and have rebounded only modestly since. We use a variety of data sources to document that the hours decline was particularly pronounced for younger men.
Not only have hours fallen, but there is a large and growing segment of this population that appears detached from the labor market: 15 percent of younger men, excluding full-time students, worked zero weeks over the prior year as of 2016. The comparable number in 2000 was only 8 percent.
A natural question is how these younger men support themselves given their decline in earnings. We document that 67 percent of non-employed younger men lived with a parent or close relative in 2015, compared to 46 percent in 2000.
One avenue to gauge how younger men perceive their fortunes is to use survey data on happiness. In this spirit, we complement the patterns in hours, wages, and consumption with data on life satisfaction from the General Social Survey. We find that younger men reported increased happiness during the 2000s, despite stagnant wages, declining employment rates and increased propensity to live with parents/relatives. This contrasts sharply with older men, whose satisfaction clearly fell, tracking their decline in employment.
Annual Hours and Employment Rates
Zero Weeks Worked
Real Wages
Two Questions
1. The study found gaming trends apply to younger men, not older men and not women. Do women more than men like to live in the real world?
2. Is happiness a function of increased gaming or a reflection on changing attitudes of millennials in general towards material things?
The research report ties in nicely with Growing Number of Companies Complain About Inability to Find Workers: So Why is Wage Growth So Low?
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
When basic needs are covered young men prefer little responsibility and a world where they can achieve emotional satisfaction without the hassle of having to work for it, cope with disappointment or negotiate much.
A world where they are in charge, in their heads.
Wait until sexy bots become common place. Most won’t leave the house!
Their parents house that is.
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Serous question.
How much of a young man’s wants and needs can now be met without work?
What’s changed?
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I will take a bat this subject.
I was an avid online gamer (with my ex-spouse) and regularly logged 40+ hours a week playing games. For years. I also worked my way through school before that (didn’t play games until years after I was working professionally). I am certainly not a slacker – but for 15/mo, it is damn cheap, fun entertainment so I got into it at some point when I was older.
FIRST: these games are highly stimulating – life usually isn’t – and humans easily gravitate towards “exciting” activities. Some of these games are incredibly complicated and take real mental horsepower to succeed at. They are crafted and driven by extensive marketing research – there is something for everyone. A person who needs to be needed by someone has a special role in these games – someone who wants to be in control of others has a special role – it is all built in by design. Someone who wants to solve complicated problems has a role. Unless y’all actually rode the rides for a year – you might not realize the extent to which this is true – and in some cases – sort of creepy.
SECOND: Gaming is social – they are doing this with other PEOPLE online – people they chat with, become friends with, they talk about problems, share life stories/experiences. For people are socially awkward or who don’t fit well – it is an escape. I think in the long run it will be viewed as a potential dependency issue – not exactly like drugs/etc – but detrimental and addictive none the less as it displaces more healthy behaviors – but it will depend on the person, situation, etc.
THIRD: Work opportunities for younger people are crap – but at the same time (I observe) that they usually don’t want to work at it either. I know many people who employ labor/etc and they constantly complain about the younger folks just not giving a s**t, being late constantly, etc.
FOURTH: Imagine if you were 22 – here is what you might have personally observed if your older brother was, say, 30, went to college, had kids, and got divorced. He is horribly in debt, working at a job that isn’t going to pay for the bills, the wife took off with the kid, he is shoveling money every month at her – she has four boyfriends (they pool housing assistance) and a habit and the kid – and there is nothing he can do despite fighting with the court system – write that check or go to jail. I have seen this EXACT situation and it is much more common than y’all realize.
Straight up – this family is destroyed and there is collateral damage.
Think that 22 year old wants to go school and get married? LOL, uh nope. The system is stacked against men in this regard and it is very much becoming a common perception. So, once that light goes off – why TRY? Just limp along with a common job, keep the overhead low, and seek life EXPERIENCES that young people seem so much more focused on – because they don’t see a successful future to work towards. Might as well enjoy the ride!
CONCLUSION: It might not make sense to y’all – but it isn’t your life they are living. Right or wrong, they are making their own decisions – and perhaps if our society wasn’t so completely screwed up (and getting worse) as it is – they might act a little different too.
I am just sharing personal observations from my life/experience.
Regards,
Cooter
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++1
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Yep. When the ‘real’ game is so completely rigged one might as well engage in the fantasy version.
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“The system is stacked against men in this regard….”
^^This^^
People will scoff, yet it’s true. Society says “F-you” to young men. They say “F-you” right back.
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Worse than stacked, much worse.
It is stacked against mothers and children also, easy to invite, easy prey.
Twisted society we live in.
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I would guess, WOW at $15 a month…..
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Brilliant commentary CrazyCooter
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My sister got lucky
Married a yuppie
Took him for all he was worth
Now she’s a swinger
Dating a singer
I can’t decide which is worse
But not me baby
I got you to save me
You’re so bad
Best thing I ever had
In a world gone mad
You’re so bad
My sister’s ex-husband
Can’t get no lovin’
Walks around dog-faced and hurt
Now he’s got nothin’
Head in the oven
I can’t decide which is worse
Repeat Chorus
You’re So Bad by Tom Petty (Full Moon Fever, 1989)
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What you say is true, Cooter. The only question I have is why the parents would allow their son to live at home and play computer games. If the parents provide the son with free rent, free healthcare, and free food, having a son who doesn’t live in the real world is not surprising. If they charge him rent, and for food, and for healhcare, he’ll have to spend at least some of his time in the real world.
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Not addressing your comment specifically, Carl R., as I agree with you, but in general on kids who stay home:
No, No, and absolutely No. When you say “charge him rent”, remember he has no job. He can’t pay rent. When he gets a job, and then loses it, are you going to feel sorry for him and let him stay without paying?
His problem is, he has no clue what responsibility means (avoidance) and there are zero consequences for his uselessness. I know he is your child, and I know you love him. I assume you want the best for him. The best for him is to deal with life on his own. You are not going to be there forever. You can help, and you can advise, but you can’t live his life for him. So let go of the control. It’s called “tough love”, the same as you would if he were addicted to drugs.
Why do you think birds kick their young out of the nest when they are old enough to fly? Why do mother lions, mother beavers, mother anythings kick their young (especially males) out of the family group when they pass puberty? Because they cause too much trouble when they are around.
No all young men are like this. I know that my two are not. They made it the old fashioned way. they earned it, as John Houseman used to say.
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Irondoor, I don’t disagree with anything you said. I don’t really want him to live at home, but if he does, he’s going to pay for his room and board. If he doesn’t have a job, and can’t pay in cash, he’s going to pay in kind, and that means significant work around the house. I don’t cleaning his room and doing the dishes. I mean landscaping, painting the house, etc. It needs to be significant enough that he learns some job skills in the process, and learns that he doesn’t want to do that for the rest of his life.
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Many a ‘manchild’ end up joining the military as they’ve no other viable option once booted from their parents’ homes. A couple notches above going to prison, they’ll feed & house you, pay you, and you get to continue your ‘fantasy world’ albeit a potentially deadly one. The future is bleak for young men.
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“What’s changed?”
Insurance policies of their parents have changed.
They can now be covered up to age 26.
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It’s a generation of young men reared inside the message that “the world doesn’t want or need you”.
Message received.
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But they now have a choice. In terms past they didn’t.
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Exactly. And they have rationally chosen to ‘opt out’.
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Besides, have you seen the average American women. OMG! I do not hardly see any women who are not grossly over weight and then tattooed up. Ahhh, if you are obese tattoos do not make you exotic!
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Exotic is bound to be racist or something anyway, no point trying.
Go tribal instead, being of likely part Pretani descent.
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The young “deplorables” are needed as cannon fodder for endless war.
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Don’t Date Robots!
Futurama – Don't date robots from John Pope on Vimeo.
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If young men could get real jobs, this wouldn’t be a problem…
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When driven be sex and a need for self-worth where both may be achieved via the Internet (port and gaming), why work if basic needs are taken care of?
Only with hindsight will they realise the benefit of honest labour.
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Dude, the “real” entry-level jobs of today are still there for the taking, but on one hand you have greedy b*****ds who would rather pay under the table for illegal labour, or you have young people who don’t want to clean toilets or dig ditches or fry burgers or answer phones or get coffee because they seem to think that at 18 to 22 they should be running the show.
We may as well stick a fork in it now and encourage TPTB to just launch the nukes … just do it!
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The barrier is expectation.. which generation promised their youth everything to make themselves feel they had the world under control, while the whole country slides into endless debt and lost opportunity. If you do not see a future that you are capable of working towards, if you cannot make out there is a feasible place for yourself in it, you will not try. Those who continue do so because it is a reward in itself to participate, they have the right attitude of serving before taking their share, they believe. Ask why so many no longer believe though, I don’t think we have to look very far, and it isn’t just because they can make do on a free measly ration, much as that might demean their own sense of worth.
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That’s no way to catch a girl ❤
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In some cases, why would you want to?
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Here’s the actual one… much better.
[video src="https://videos.files.wordpress.com/MaDgJImK/the-conservative-millennial_hd.mp4" /]
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I feel like this is a parody, but the way things are these days, it’s getting increasingly hard to tell.
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That, friends, is the result of a $250,000 education.
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I’d bet she’s more likely Roxbury Community College.
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That has got to be a joke. Otherwise, enjoy living in your car or spinning on poles to pay off that debt.
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These young men might not be interested in reality
But reality is interested in them
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When you stare at reality, reality stares back at you.
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That’s what Reality Winner said.
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My son the computer genius says that computer games and social media are addictive. What is more, many of them are designed to be that way. Such serious wastes of time are not good!
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If the games were not addictive, the tech economy would crater. All social media and games follow the same principle — keep you hooked and not let you leave. The social media companies work their asses off to get you a new gizmo (that’s why Instagram copies any “original” idea that Snapchat finds to work) almost every week. Come to think of it, even News and opinion outlets follow the same principles. This is called gamification. If these systems went away, most of the distributed computing systems (Kafka, Spark, Cassandra, etc.) will then have no data to save and regurgitate. Most of Silicon Valley will be unemployed.
These victims are taking one for the team. Kudos to them.
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Duh. I was addicted to Castle Wolfenstein and Wizardry from 1981-1985. Then I became addicted to the guitar, thank God!
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I made the same mistake many parents make. I didn’t want my children to suffer or struggle like I did as a child and young man so I kept cushioning all the unpleasant challenges they faced. Bought them used cars so they could get to their part-time jobs during high school. Fully paid university education, spending money, etc..
Just one problem with this approach to parenting. The kids have no resilience. It never occurred to me that dealing with an alcoholic father and being flat broke and unemployed motivated me to survive. Stress builds muscle in your brain so you get better at coping.
All is not lost. I cut off all financial support and all three are swimming just fine on their own. That tough love shit works. I was just a little slow on the uptake.
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Why do you think the Asians are eating our lunch? 500 million Chinese who leave the destitute countryside and work like dogs to survive. Living 12 to a room assembling iPhones.
Trump is going to “bring these jobs back”? Not a chance, since nobody in the US would work and live like that. They’d be on lifetime disability in month.
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Most of the good jobs have been either given to foreigners on H-1B visas (ie: in the STEM sector), or they’ve been offshored. Do you really expect young men in their prime to become bum wipers at the local nursing home?
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Since H1-Bs come up a lot I started to look into them. About 20 years ago I used to identify hard to find s/w talent from around the World and get them a visa – I had an immigration lawyer on retainer. I’d then place them in short term hourly contracts and pay them a base salary plus a bonus based on their billing hours. It was a great gig in the Y2K era and delivered amazing returns. There was a limit on the number of H1Bs so we’d get new candidates lined up for the start of the business year and push them all through before the limit was hit.
They got a three year visa that we could extend to six years. We could keep them on longer if they had got to a key point in the green card process. Most came for 3-5 years then went home with a nice savings account balance. Good luck to them all.
Anyway, my calculation on the actual number of workers here on H1Bs is about 400-500,000. Most are in STEM and based on my past experience a large percentage are in the Bay Area and NYC.
I’m not sure that they are here in sufficient numbers to:
1. take jobs away from equally educated/talented Americans
2. impact the salary levels in the industries where they are most employed – they still make up a very small percentage of the total workforce
I think H1Bs are a red herring – but I’m open to any research that does show an impact.
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Don’t forget OPT (“Optional Practical Training”). This is technically not a guest worker program, but rather an internship program for foreign students on the F-1 visa. There are 147,000 of these workers.
https://normsaysno.wordpress.com/2017/02/22/in-reforming-h-1b-dont-forget-opt/
It is interesting that this was created by executive order, with the view that an internship is part of an education. It started out as a 12-month internship, was expanded by Bush to 29 months, and then by Obama to 36 months. So, this is a 3-year internship.
Also, there are always new executive orders increasing the cap. E.g., Obama issued an order allowing the spouses of H-1B workers to also work. Yet, this is not counted in the cap, despite the fact that H-1B spouses are often doing similar work.
https://normsaysno.wordpress.com/2017/04/08/the-h-1b-spouses-issue-is-back/
The whole purpose of all these programs and executive orders is to keep wages low for the wealthy tech companies. The workers cannot leave to find a better job when they’re in the 6-or-more-year queue for a green card, during which employers can safely keep their wages low without fear that these workers will leave.
Even with U.S. citizens, these companies try to keep labor captive, as they were found guilty in a court of law with colluding to not hire each other’s workers, thereby keeping wages artificially low. These were very wealthy companies (e.g., Apple, Google, Intel, and eight others.)
http://www.mercurynews.com/2015/09/03/silicon-valleys-415-million-poaching-settlement-finalized/
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They are only a single symptom in a whole constellation of things that are the cause of young men opting out. It’s not the young men that are at fault, it’s cause and effect.
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Exactly.
For example of how leverage works – how many fifty year olds were competing with foreign workers for a position thirty years ago?
I expect very few.
So how is someone older going to tell the youth what their sentiments are, as they are not necessarily as privileged in some ways that you once were.
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Its actually closer to a million on H-1B, plus hoardes more on OPT and L-1 visas.
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The US military and CIA hires gamers to fly drones into peoples’ homes while they are sleeping. Free red bull and explosions
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Curtis. Agree.
Should write a book about it. ‘Pitfalls of Protective Parenting’, or ‘How to Create Tough Kids’.
Probably be a best seller.
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There is at least one book about that already. I think it’s called “Free Range Kids”.
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“The Pussy Generation”. Clint Eastwood
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Prime example, his son, Scott.
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“1. The study found gaming trends apply to younger men, not older men and not women. Do women more than men like to live in the real world?” The way the world, starting in academia as well as affirmative action hiring, is targeted on women. Men are usually depicted in popular culture as crude or inane ruffians or fools. Married men KNOW they are likely to lose most of what they’ve worked for to an avaricious ex-spouse so why waste the time getting married?
The system is now rigged against men, especially white men, so retreat into fantasy will have a lot of allure. I did get lucky and am still married (after 38 years) so have all my stuff and had a daughter who became a nuke in the Navy so she has a great job. My friends with sons are despairing for the most part.
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Women are less into gaming, but are into social media that much more (fake friends, fake-famous, status whoring, etc etc)
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Cell phones/towers went digital around 2007-2008, so now they can get the internet, which can be the greatest waste of time devise in the world. Social media took off shortly after. It coincides with the graphs as does trip and fall accident data from emergency rooms by the 21 – 30 year old group, more than likely.
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The way we make our living (making things) defines our culture. Assembly line work will not produce great intellectuals or proud happy people.Artisant type of work that requires learning and a high degree of skills will produce pride and satisfaction : i.e : custom made by hand will produce a different person than the one making an object on the assembly line. Humans are beings of praxis. Hands and brain work as one.AI will create the dumbest society’s ever.
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I don’t know if we are ready to be only the second smartest form in the known Universe. AI will replicate some of the emotional impact that the arrival of and ET would induce.
This is going to be an interesting ride!
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Will AI figure out that it has to appear dumb to keep it’s creators happy?
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http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-17/robot-security-guard-commits-suicide-mall-fountain
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Years from now it will be crystal clear that the reason humans evolved in the first place was to replace ourselves with AI.
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Have 3 sons. Their friends like to play and have part time jobs that give them time to play. By play I mean social activities that they think are fun.
My 3 sons…1 an attorney who graduated from a top tier law school is a Capt in the Guard and a public defender who makes actually a decent salary. Son 2 graduated from a top 5 engineering school and is developing car batteries for the future. The 3rd is a senior at the top 5 school and carries a 3.85 gpa/ 4.0 and was never in the top 1/3 of his high school, nor did he get into hs high math.
What was different? We never pushed them academically. We gave them plent of time to be creative. One was getting addicted to gaming, but quit on his own. All were good athletes and did extra curriculars. One did college sport until an injury took him out. 2 were team MVPS and one should have been.
Several class valedictorians of their school dropped out of college due to pressure. My bosy just don’t feel pressure. They do what they do because they are motivated.
I did my own plumbing and reroofing and so on by myself with them helping.
We also home schooled for a time in early education. What ever we did, it worked.
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Unfortunately many/most people are either not able to understand this approach, or haven’t the patience for it, but it is the most natural and straightforward way. Education means litterally “to lead out”, whether it is the knowledge of the individual, or that person into the world.. it does not mean force information into a person and set objectives that they cannot relate to.
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Your sons got lucky. Law school produces tons of grads but not many can find jobs. Same with the engineering schools, with STEM unemployment being horrifically high.
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No, not lucky. He got my interest in going overseas and became fluent in Spanish which was a part of his plan. An attorney speaking fluent Spanish is in high demand. He started Law School working at Walmart and then at a hotel supervising Spanish speaking workers. All of them graduated with less than 20k in B.S. debt. All three have worked their way through with little money support from me. I buy some groceries. The lawyer also worked taking care of students with physical handicaps, oft getting assistance calls in the middle of the night.
My engineer sons have helped me replace windows, do siding and roofs. I got them credit cards early and they have FICOs north of 800.
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Hat tip to your son the public defender and serving in the Guard. Hope he sticks with it. You have a good gene pool going. How are their marriages (if married) and how are their wives and your grandkids coming along?
Both my boys married above themselves. Great wives, strongly motivated, good mothers, no bitching and allow the boys some freedom to do the things they enjoy. One son went to So Cal for tech school and met a Cali girl. She couldn’t wait to get out of there and up here to Montana. She’s not into hunting, but she got a couple of deer with her Surburban. One was a nice buck.
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First, I married above me in IQ and looks. The lawyer is married to a frugal and terrific girl. The engineers not married yet. My daughter chose the mommy route and we have a grandson. His dad just got back from Afghanistan. I’m not real thrilled with dad’s getting deployed but my daughter did better than I expected about it.
Back to the lawyer, when he joined the guard he actually did basic. The drill sgt got relieved for abusing the recruits. He didn’t go the officer route until he graduated law school.
With 6 kids (youngest 2 adopted) there wasn’t much money to spoil them. If they wanted nice things they earned it themselves. They didn’t get tutoring on ACT exams or LSAT. Like I said they earned it.
At times they were frustrated growing up with not having what other kids had. We did spend a higher percentage of income on travel than most families I would guess.
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“They do what they do because they are motivated.”
That’s the key to all of this. The presence or absence of motivation explains 90% of a young person’s situation.
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Its a situation where the student outshine his master.
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so much in the air these days that, some ‘forces’ are against young men from getting jobs. so much more easier to blame someone or something instead of ourselves. what’s the dif if it’s welfare or parents who pick up the tab?
I have 8 nieces and nephews who all have good jobs and spouses too. they all make over 6 figures and they are in their 30’s.
yes they have intelligence, and a good work ethic. yes I know not all have either or both.
the old saying when it becomes painful enough, people change and I would add go to work.
if you don’t like the working conditions at entry level, then figure out a way to advance higher. sometimes just being dependable is enough to get promoted.
they call it work because it is.
I am a 64 yr old female who used to play first person shooters, even wrote my own “doom” levels. yes it’s fun. and addictive. who wouldn’t rather play than work.
I know reality because I grew up with that. not sure children growing up with games can tell. so sure fly the drones it’s not real people you are bombing.
change happens in miniscule amounts constantly. but it’s exponentiated
those we see everyday morph unnoticing. go to a hs reuion and and wow. society works the same way.change continues whether we notice or not.
what were we doing to not notice until now, where things really are?
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That is good advice, I think there is a difference between if you grow up basically dependent, or turn to distraction because you reject what you find. Some people just don’t have any grounding in a good reality, don’t know they have any prospect at anything, and that is truly sad. For those with some fight, either what you say if there seems some world worthwhile around, if not I recommend to leave to another country for half a year or more, preferably with a mate ( friend). Pick somewhere that seems interesting and has at least a menial employment scene… put a months expenses together, passport and visa, a return ticket, and get the **** out of dodge. The world is a big big place, another country ( Canada doesn’t count, but still) will change your view completely. Most half modern countries are as safe and friendly as the US, if not more so. Behave (to a degree) and enjoy.
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A good idea. They can join EU refugee stream, and experience that world without borders. Work on their acting skills (sink or swim), by impersonating Middle Easterners (like a gaming persona) to collect real world benefits in Germany or Sweden. Get paid and get free rent while gaming, a worthy goal that would develop useful life skills even when it fails. Combines the best of both worlds, real and fantasy at the same time. USA could export millions of young white males (gamers with computer skills) to EU, which is experiencing a dying out of that category of person. Like a three team trade in sports. USA gets Mexicans and Central Americans in exchange for shipping its young white male gamers to Sweden, Germany, et al. EU gets to feel superior for taking in more refugees, advancing the borderless world concept, and replenish its populations (assuming it can motivate gamers to procreate; perhaps as game prizes). Win-Win-Win game. Also fits Progressive, liberal, feminist, DNC/Hillary agendas for a browner USA.
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Think your onto something there…no seriously, joining a refugee stream is the sort of adventure I would go for. Might have to to escape EU, I jest not. Can tell you about jumping trains Rome to Algeciras…hiding under seats in an empty compartment… which then fills up… you’re staring at feet and listening to cheerful conversations… then sudden quiet, concerned talk, tension…. a face looks under the seat close to yours… ‘You ok?’… ‘Yes’…. ‘ We thought you had been murdered, come out from there, the conductor has passed by already ‘. Plenty more stories like that where I come from.
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What do you say to younger people who have the skills and the aptitude, but simply can’t get their job applications noticed in the pile of hundreds, sometimes thousands of others?
Finding a job these days is mostly a matter of luck. All the skills in the world aren’t useful if you aren’t lucky enough to have your job application picked off the pile of thousands of others. Unless you have the skills to create your own business in an environment that is decidedly rigged against small business.
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People hire people … not applications. Find some way to get in front of somebody who can actually hire you or introduce you someone who can and … most importantly … give them a reason to hire you by showing how you can add value to what they are doing.
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Every big business started as a small business. Next time you take a drive into or through the suburbs or the city, think about what is behind each of those business front doors. An individual or two, families, employees, risk, success, failure, organization, purchasing of materials and supplies, producing a product or services and hopefully a profit, paying the bills, payroll, long hours, selling, collecting receivables, customer service, dealing with the city, county, state and federal regulations and government bureaurocracy bull shite. Hundreds, thousands and millions of them. All struggling to survive. Most of them could use a smart, honest, capable, responsible young man.
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Movie industry really took off during the Great Depression. The worse reality is, the higher the desire is to escape it.
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Some hypocrisy going on against gamers maybe… I don’t game or have TV, admittedly spend more time on the web than I should, but Americans like their TV… especially older ones. Beats me how people watch over 4hrs a day… but 18 to 24 yrs 2hrs less a day :
https://www.recode.net/2016/6/27/12041028/tv-hours-per-week-nielsen
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I am not sure they are “watching” it. My wife turns it on just to have some noise or distraction in the background and pays little attention to it. I mute the sound. We discuss my muting the sound.
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🙂
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Games have a purpose and can be a positive. However, I don’t like to see people so consumed by them that they don’t become contributing members of society. Seems like a waste of talent.
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Computer games? Rubbish…I prefer Star Trek series reruns…
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Reminds me of
for no particular reason.
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Similar to what I was thinking. Omaha Beach. Meat grinder. Different war, different time. I did my almost two years in Vietnam, though I did no jungle fighting as an Air Force pilot. Nothing like getting shot at to focus the mind, as Patton said.
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If life is not exciting then these men are not taking challenging school subjects, are not in the military, do not own a business, are not solving problems, are not competing.
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The young men are often highly educated, in fields like engineering. They still can’t find jobs.
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This is very true. To add insult to injury, a lot of people think that if you have a good education, you would obviously get a good job. Because their generation could do that.
Young men have to reevaluate their view on education, and the whole globalist economic system. Plenty of resources on the internet.
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Things that make you go “Hmmmm…….”
Ecclesiastes
Chapter 2
18 Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.
19 And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity.
20 Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labour which I took under the sun.
21 For there is a man whose labour is in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in equity; yet to a man that hath not laboured therein shall he leave it for his portion. This also is vanity and a great evil.
22 For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun?
23 For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity.
24 There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.
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This can’t be good. My parents would have kicked my ass out the door. Plenty of Indians will be glad to come here and work. I’ve heard that 99+ percent of these guys are liberal pussy men who support Bernie. Apparently Bernie got his political career started when he got kicked out of a commune for not doing any work.
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Men generally work to support their beloved families. Single men and non parents tend to have little motivation. Singleness has become the new normal.
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I remember being a pre-teen in 1980 when the Atari took off. My friends and I played incessantly. Space invaders was the greatest ever. Atari football with 5 little blocks on each side moving across the screen was magic. We played ball in the park after school every day as well. Rode our bikes (sans helmets) everywhere, spent our summer days at the beach, and all did very well in school – because our parents insisted that was the priority.
A few year later the priority became girls and partying and the gaming disappeared from our lives. Throughout college I always had an X-Box or Nintendo but played very little, mostly Madden Football. After college, well no time for anything but work, and in many ways my work was like a video game – just paid to do it, then marriage and lots of obligations. Still on occasion I played. After I retired I started gaming a bit again and was amazed at the complexity of some of the new games. Beating X-com or Civ 6 on their highest levels really takes some serious work and planing along the way (and of course some luck), maybe some weeks I play too much but I always make certain to go to the gym 3-4 times a week, play tennis 2-3 times a week, kitesurf when the wind is favorable, invite friends over to cook dinner for them (I love to cook), watch movies, go to sporting games, take walks with my wife, give plenty of attention to my dogs (LOVE, LOVE, LOVE my dogs), maybe build stuff around the house sometimes, obviously by the name travel (though mother in law health issues – dimentia- have made that difficult these days).
Basically life is about balance. Too much of any one thing is not good, too much of nothing is even worse.
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Same here with the mother-in-law thing. With grandkids nearby and her mother’s needs, there is great stress on the wife. My (our) needs have to come second or third and we are hoping and looking forward to the day when we can have time to ourselves. But this is just a season and you got to live through it. Her mother is 90 and in good physical health, so could be a while.
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I work with a gamer. He has taken vacation days in order to play the new releases. I mention that if he used just a day or two a week learning skills (with free online courses, etc) that might have a use in the real world he laughs.
Now we all have our vices, but I can’t for the life of me figure out gamers. Of course I can’t figure out golfers and fly fishermen either.
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As a golfer and fly fisherman, I can tell you that both bring a great deal of joy through practice and eventual mastery (though I’ll never master either). They are lifetime activities at which you can always improve.
I’m a software engineer by trade. I know more C based languages than you can shake a stick at. I enjoy writing elegant code, and seeing how productive I can be. While, learning yet a new language or mastering a new pattern might make me more valuable to the marketplace, I wouldn’t trade the extra money for the feeling of a big Snook hitting my lure on a cool, quiet morning.
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“that both bring a great deal of joy”
OR…
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Been there many times. 🙂
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Shore fishing in the Med., whacking a heavy weight as far out as possible without breaking the rod, then sitting there imagining there are fish nibbling away at the bait carefully around the hook because half the time when you reel in there is no bait left. After that I go uw metal detecting and collect all the weights that have been lost, have about 80 lbs of lead weights in a bucket, stops it getting knocked over , gold left around too.
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I’ve finally had to give up on golf. I’ve heaved too many of my clubs into water hazards over the years. Just too frustrating.
Fly fishing sounds like fun.
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The thing about fly fishing is that the line goes as far behind you as it goes in front. So you need lots of room. You spend a lot of time waist deep in water, which means you have to do a lot of planning. But that’s part of the fun, for me at least.
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Noooooooo, only if it is your own private pastime, not if you are under pressure, say family or friends attentive. Member of my family has a short fuse when it comes to getting frustrated, plays golf endlessly… but fishing, you should see the apprehension that goes round as we set off, more like dread. That said the rest of us always ended up with some unspoken feeling of common suffering to bind us, and we would visit places we would not have dreamed of.
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How many times do we need to ponder this topic? It’s just a feedback loop of older cranks enjoying the rush of denouncing the younger generations who are dealing with a crooked economy. The younger generations further insulate themselves from this emotional toxicity, holding out for some consensus to fix things or basic validation from a group of peers who they often find online.
It’s two different worlds, those who can afford frivolous consumption, and those who need to stay put and find ways to be more efficient. Certainly what we need is more lifestyle efficiency, which laughs off the shallow Boomer tendancy to consume in order to fill emotional voids. Yes, call this a less materialistic attitude, or more appropriately, the development of a less materialistic attitude.
Many Boomers call this the imaginary world, as it doesn’t fit into their gross (densely and exclusively physical) value system. However, there is nothing imaginary about learning to find joy and fulfillment in interior experiences such as studying Wisdom traditions, taking the time to be educated instead of brainwashed by media, and understanding the subtle energies of intention and emotional ruses so as to be able to move democracies away from the clutches of those who distract and deceive.
Much of the important work to be done is not in making more stuff, but in relating well to one another, genuinely, not because you want something. Men may start out lazy, but for most it is just a phase, as once they learn how good it feels to be productive, they start working. Weather they work for the global economy, around the house, or by developing themselves to have conversations such as this, they are working in their own way and are at Liberty to do so.
So fuss on in your judgements all you’d like, but realize that it is you who have the work to do, and it is not always financially based. And know that the younger generations appreciate what you have helped to build, and oftentimes the steady paycheck coming into the family in these tough times where you have far more leverage than we.
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They are just avoiding the chains of serfdom in the neofeudal oligarchy. Why be a minimum wage slave who can’t make enough to support a family or even rent their own place? And the parents probably enjoy having them around.
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Sure, but they have to get wise too, the system and society actively looks for anyone ‘witholding’ anything. There is no incentive to contribute where your senses tell you the setup is crooked, where what you witness of other people does not convince you to join. Of course everyone in the pool is telling them to come on in, but if it looks and smells like a swamp it probably is. The young, youth, they see clearly, they have their senses open and intact, but they don’t have the benefit of experience, that complicated justification that balances reward and cost to the liking of those subject to it. That people sit around and nod and agree to merit in an unspoken fashion simply underlines that they are dumbed and too stupidly self satisfied to explain any better. Maybe they are. But then you have to think ahead to what exactly you stand for, what world you are going to create to live in, because if not, eventually others will decide that for you, and you will be helpless under their weight and influence.
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Look up MGTOW. It’s a big thing
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Hey quit making fun of us. It is my disability payments that I am collecting that allows me to play world of Warcraft 16 hours a day in my parents basement.
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“Do women more than men like to live in the real world?”
Go to any mall and look at all the women maxing out their credit cards on superficial and needless neurotransmitter stimulators.
So let’s not make this a male vs. female issue and turn it into another gender war while taking our eye off the ball. .
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I scanned all the comments and was shocked by what was not mentioned. Unemployed people both young and old watch pornography more than anything else-believe it!
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Employed people don’t?
Government employees are renown for watching porn in their workplace cubicles.
An audit caught dozens of SEC workers (half of whom made over $100,000 a year) watching porn on their taxpayer fianced computers as the economy burned to the ground in 2008-09.
Unemployed people don’t have a corner on that market. lol.
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Hummmm, I wonder if anyone has done a study on reality TV shows impact on Woman’s Work habits, or online shopping for that matter 😉
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My kids play video games and are good students. They have their priorities straight. I would take credit for it, but I did nothing. This is just the way they are. They aren’t dumb asses.
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ZHish set of comments continue @
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-18/another-reason-men-dont-work-imaginary-world-more-enjoyable-real-world
for anyone less easily offended.
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One consequence is that young women can’t find decently employed men to marry: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/07/04/shortage-eligible-men-has-left-women-taking-desperate-steps/. There are spillover effects.
“Experts said “terrifying” demographic shifts had created a “deficit” of educated men and a growing problem of “leftover” professional women, with female graduates vastly outnumbering males in in many countries.
The study led by Yale University, involved interviews with 150 women undergoing egg freezing at eight clinics.
Researchers found that in more than 90 per cent of cases, the women were attempting to buy extra time because they could not find a partner to settle down with, amid a “dearth of educated men”.
In recent decades, the gender balance at British universities has tipped dramatically.
In 1985, 45 per cent of UK students were female, but by 2000, 54 per cent were women.
This group, now in their late 30s, is finding it harder to find a man of equal status, fertility experts said. And the trend is set to steepen in future generations, they warned, with nearly six in ten current students female.”
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“This group, now in their late 30s, is finding it harder to find a man of equal status”
Is actually a mistype, it should read
“This group, now in their late 30s, is finding it harder to find a man of state equality”
No pity.
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I think there is a lot of incentive pushing young men towards this with the rise of e-sports as well. E-sports is the growing insanely fast. The prize money for the Dota 2 International competition this year is around $22 million. Players and teams can easily earns hundreds of thousands if not millions of Dollars per year. However e-sports pros must practice 8-10 hours per day, like any other professional athlete or competitor. Seeing someone your own age taking home a million dollars for winning a competition is a strong incentive for a 15 or 16 year old to want to get into professional gaming.
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