Missing the Boat — Part II

From the Atlantic,

So where do these men live? What are they doing all day?

The answer to the first question seems to be that more of them are living at home. For the first time since at least the 1940s, young men are more likely to be living with their parents than with romantic partners. In 2014, 35 percent of young men between 18 and 34 lived with their parents, compared to just 28 percent who lived with a spouse. It’s not the cost of college or the weight of student loans alone that is forcing young people to stay home. Young adults without a high-school or college degree are far more likely to live with their parents. 

As for what they’re doing all day, Erik Hurst, an economist at the University of Chicago, is now conducting research that suggests that non-college men who aren’t in the labor market are spending a considerable amount of their time in front of screens.

Everybody knew this was coming.  They are playing video games.  Note that it is inherently understood that this is a very bad thing.  Very bad.

In the 2000s, employment rates for young men with less than a four-year degree 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.

They are having fun and not being productive.  An obvious  quest ion is why this is the way that it is.  A partial explanation,

Detached from the labor force, with neither a college degree nor a steady job, these men have little income. But the technological revolution in media and entertainment of the last few decades has made it cheaper than ever to divert oneself on a phone, computer, television, or video-game console. Leisure is cheap enough that it apparently doesn’t require a steady W-2 or 1099 to have fun.

It is as if the author is pissed that video games are reasonably cheap.  Perhaps they should be taxed…  But it gets worse,

And they are having fun, Hurst emphasized. “Happiness surveys actually indicate that they [are] quite content compared to their peers,” he told UChicago. In the short run, not working doesn’t seem to make men miserable at all.

They were told as boys to prepare for a life of work, but somehow it did not sink in.  Societal expectations are not having the desired effect.  So let us chop them down and explain what they will be missing,

Cheap and abundant entertainment anesthetizes less-skilled and less-educated young men in the present. But in the long run, it cuts them off from the same things that provide meaning in middle age, according to psychological and longitudinal studies —a career, a family, and a sense of accomplishment. The problem is that these 20-year-olds will eventually be 30-year-olds and 40-year-olds, and although young men who don’t go to college might appear happy now, those same satisfaction studies suggest that they will be much less happy in their 30s and 40s—less likely to get married, and more likely to be in poverty.

So here is the crux.  It is suggested that the typical beta bux scenario is the path to his happiness.  In some cases it might be.  It is a path full of work, danger and frustration.  In the modern day, with men denigrated as they are,  even many of the perceived successful are not feeling as such.

Furthermore there is the taxes that will be paid and the general productivity of life of work for the family man; with such men typically rising to the occasion of providing (and then some).

Finally there is the question as to whether these fellas will be unhappy in middle age.  Perhaps video games would not have the same allure, but other activities might take their place (e.g. outdoorsy, building and fixing stuff).  Once again, due to the situation of their youths (poor job prospects, slutty women riding the carousel, potential for divorce) they made that assessment that the family life was never in the cards, and as such, did not miss what was never within reach.

Obviously the MSM always misses the boat with respect to the last few paragraphs.  Do they realize the truth, and are ignoring it?  Is the narrative so strong that they can never break away?  What precisely is their problem?

 

‹ Missing the Boat — Part I

Little Things ›

Posted in FarmBoy, Lies, Trainwreck