<story><title>No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing</title><url>https://robkhenderson.substack.com/p/no-one-expects-young-men-to-do-anything</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rayiner</author><text>How does a “flat lining” of wages of cause family stability to &lt;i&gt;go down&lt;/i&gt;? And how do you explain high levels of family stability in countries that are much poorer?</text></item><item><author>the_solenoid</author><text>I agree - and will take it one step further: he misses the root causes of &amp;quot;instability&amp;quot;, and I bet it tracks directly with the gutting of the middle class starting in the 70&amp;#x27;s, and&amp;#x2F;or the same flat-lining of wages (not keeping up with inflation etc) despite huge increases in productivity in about the same time period.&lt;p&gt;Money is a huge stressor in relationships. Misogyny is still a huge thing (to my utter surprise honestly). Abuse, etc. Options for financial stability to escape these things I would suspect to contribute as well.</text></item><item><author>jcstk</author><text>I can appreciate this perspective because I used to have it. I even wrote a similar blog post 10 years ago - it was on the top of HN and the comment section was a beautiful shitshow. For me, this perspective was a good story to tell myself - it justified why I was only investing my time in “work”, and validated me for having “come so far”.&lt;p&gt;Over time, I have reflected and shifted this perspective. That reflection centered around the question the author hasn’t asked himself yet: who creates these expectations? It’s always some loose definition like “society” or “elite”, or some other handy wavy grouping of people.&lt;p&gt;But, to be clear, those expectations are coming from the author. That’s his perspective of what the world thinks, based on his interactions, based on what he chooses to read, listen to, etc. He&amp;#x27;s not describing anyone but himself.&lt;p&gt;I found that if I find myself projecting onto social norms, society, or some other loose definition of “they”, what I’m really doing is projecting a part of myself that I haven’t been honest about yet.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>danans</author><text>&amp;gt; And how do you explain high levels of family stability in countries that are much poorer?&lt;p&gt;Less individual freedom, greater direct economic dependency on others in your group, and also the threat of ostracization, excommunication, and destitution if you go against its rules.  Basically, there are extremely high cost&amp;#x2F;stakes associated with going it on your own.&lt;p&gt;But on the other side there are also good things that come from greater direct interdependency, like perhaps less individual alienation and a greater sense of shared purpose, and access to community resources when you follow the prescribed rules.</text></comment>
<story><title>No one expects young men to do anything and they are responding by doing nothing</title><url>https://robkhenderson.substack.com/p/no-one-expects-young-men-to-do-anything</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>rayiner</author><text>How does a “flat lining” of wages of cause family stability to &lt;i&gt;go down&lt;/i&gt;? And how do you explain high levels of family stability in countries that are much poorer?</text></item><item><author>the_solenoid</author><text>I agree - and will take it one step further: he misses the root causes of &amp;quot;instability&amp;quot;, and I bet it tracks directly with the gutting of the middle class starting in the 70&amp;#x27;s, and&amp;#x2F;or the same flat-lining of wages (not keeping up with inflation etc) despite huge increases in productivity in about the same time period.&lt;p&gt;Money is a huge stressor in relationships. Misogyny is still a huge thing (to my utter surprise honestly). Abuse, etc. Options for financial stability to escape these things I would suspect to contribute as well.</text></item><item><author>jcstk</author><text>I can appreciate this perspective because I used to have it. I even wrote a similar blog post 10 years ago - it was on the top of HN and the comment section was a beautiful shitshow. For me, this perspective was a good story to tell myself - it justified why I was only investing my time in “work”, and validated me for having “come so far”.&lt;p&gt;Over time, I have reflected and shifted this perspective. That reflection centered around the question the author hasn’t asked himself yet: who creates these expectations? It’s always some loose definition like “society” or “elite”, or some other handy wavy grouping of people.&lt;p&gt;But, to be clear, those expectations are coming from the author. That’s his perspective of what the world thinks, based on his interactions, based on what he chooses to read, listen to, etc. He&amp;#x27;s not describing anyone but himself.&lt;p&gt;I found that if I find myself projecting onto social norms, society, or some other loose definition of “they”, what I’m really doing is projecting a part of myself that I haven’t been honest about yet.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>philistine</author><text>I think you&amp;#x27;re trying to think that stable families become less stable if their waged stagnate. They don&amp;#x27;t. What happens is that in aggregate, with stagnating wages, there are less stable (middle-class) families in society.&lt;p&gt;For so-called &lt;i&gt;poorer countries&lt;/i&gt;, they are differently structured. It&amp;#x27;s tough to compare their family units with our rich nations.</text></comment>