<story><title>1.5 Million Missing Black Men</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/20/upshot/missing-black-men.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;module=photo-spot-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news&amp;_r=0&amp;abt=0002&amp;abg=1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lifeisstillgood</author><text>The major restraining factor on young men in a village or tribal setting was always the rest of the village.  When the demographics became unbalanced (war, famine) then young gangs were always to be feared (Peter Pans lost boys would not have been cute)&lt;p&gt;We are fortunate in having overcome hunger in 4&amp;#x2F;5ths of the world - but it has left a lot of time on people&amp;#x27;s hands compared to a hunter gather lifestyle and a lot of unsupervised time similarly&lt;p&gt;That said - holy moley! this is insane!&lt;p&gt;But does this work for other sexual choice communities? I suppose there must have been class divides where &amp;quot;working class&amp;quot; men were more likely to go to jail so changing the sexual choice landscape? Gay men?! Ex-military? Prior to public transport was there geographic boundaries? Education?&lt;p&gt;This is a fascinating subject - why are black women limiting themselves to a reduced choice of black men when presumably other races are open? What is it that makes that choice &amp;#x2F; boundaries? Clearly parental type must have a big impact, but what else?&lt;p&gt;This is an indictment of US post-slavery culture to be sure, but thinking about it it is massively wider in scope.&lt;p&gt;Any pointers to research on this?</text></item><item><author>fecklessyouth</author><text>The idea that boys need exposure to women before adulthood, with the exception of their mother, is a relatively modern one. The extent to which the modern west mixes the sexes through education and other social activities is unprecedented, so the Middle East is not nearly alone in this respect.&lt;p&gt;Of course, things change in adulthood, and if young Middle Eastern men who would normally be entering stable relationships with women are prevented from doing so, I can imagine how that would enable angry jihadists. But at that age, the blame probably lies with other social&amp;#x2F;economic factors and less with their family unit.&lt;p&gt;And the effect that marriage has on the behavior of men is fairly well-known: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;inspired-life&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;dont-be-a-bachelor-why-married-men-work-harder-and-smarter-and-make-more-money&amp;#x2F;?postshare=3351429127355739&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;inspired-life&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>dmix</author><text>&amp;gt; The black women left behind find that potential partners of the same race are scarce, while men, who face an abundant supply of potential mates, don’t need to compete as hard to find one. As a result, Mr. Charles said, “men seem less likely to commit to romantic relationships, or to work hard to maintain them.”&lt;p&gt;Interesting, I never thought about this side-effect of mass incarceration. Another aggravating factor in a repeating cycle?&lt;p&gt;I remember reading a hypothesis of why many middle eastern countries generate so many young angry jihadists is that most of the young men had never had a stable interactions with women in their youth. Most grew up in socially conservative environments and missed out on the stabilizing effect of having relationships with women, not having a sexual output, not having reasons to stay alive for a girl at home, or even missing out on having a female perspective on things (women are arguably less war-prone than men).&lt;p&gt;Middle eastern young males obviously experience a different social environment than black men do but I&amp;#x27;m curious if stable relationships with women really do lead to less violence&amp;#x2F;crime by males? Or is that merely hopeful thinking by social conservatives?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>munificent</author><text>&amp;gt; We are fortunate in having overcome hunger in 4&amp;#x2F;5ths of the world - but it has left a lot of time on people&amp;#x27;s hands compared to a hunter gather lifestyle and a lot of unsupervised time similarly&lt;p&gt;Actually, some studies have shown that hunter-gatherers have much more free time than we do. Our wants grow more quickly than our technology can satisfy them.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Original_affluent_society&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Original_affluent_society&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>1.5 Million Missing Black Men</title><url>http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/20/upshot/missing-black-men.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;module=photo-spot-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news&amp;_r=0&amp;abt=0002&amp;abg=1</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>lifeisstillgood</author><text>The major restraining factor on young men in a village or tribal setting was always the rest of the village.  When the demographics became unbalanced (war, famine) then young gangs were always to be feared (Peter Pans lost boys would not have been cute)&lt;p&gt;We are fortunate in having overcome hunger in 4&amp;#x2F;5ths of the world - but it has left a lot of time on people&amp;#x27;s hands compared to a hunter gather lifestyle and a lot of unsupervised time similarly&lt;p&gt;That said - holy moley! this is insane!&lt;p&gt;But does this work for other sexual choice communities? I suppose there must have been class divides where &amp;quot;working class&amp;quot; men were more likely to go to jail so changing the sexual choice landscape? Gay men?! Ex-military? Prior to public transport was there geographic boundaries? Education?&lt;p&gt;This is a fascinating subject - why are black women limiting themselves to a reduced choice of black men when presumably other races are open? What is it that makes that choice &amp;#x2F; boundaries? Clearly parental type must have a big impact, but what else?&lt;p&gt;This is an indictment of US post-slavery culture to be sure, but thinking about it it is massively wider in scope.&lt;p&gt;Any pointers to research on this?</text></item><item><author>fecklessyouth</author><text>The idea that boys need exposure to women before adulthood, with the exception of their mother, is a relatively modern one. The extent to which the modern west mixes the sexes through education and other social activities is unprecedented, so the Middle East is not nearly alone in this respect.&lt;p&gt;Of course, things change in adulthood, and if young Middle Eastern men who would normally be entering stable relationships with women are prevented from doing so, I can imagine how that would enable angry jihadists. But at that age, the blame probably lies with other social&amp;#x2F;economic factors and less with their family unit.&lt;p&gt;And the effect that marriage has on the behavior of men is fairly well-known: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;inspired-life&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;02&amp;#x2F;dont-be-a-bachelor-why-married-men-work-harder-and-smarter-and-make-more-money&amp;#x2F;?postshare=3351429127355739&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.washingtonpost.com&amp;#x2F;news&amp;#x2F;inspired-life&amp;#x2F;wp&amp;#x2F;2015&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>dmix</author><text>&amp;gt; The black women left behind find that potential partners of the same race are scarce, while men, who face an abundant supply of potential mates, don’t need to compete as hard to find one. As a result, Mr. Charles said, “men seem less likely to commit to romantic relationships, or to work hard to maintain them.”&lt;p&gt;Interesting, I never thought about this side-effect of mass incarceration. Another aggravating factor in a repeating cycle?&lt;p&gt;I remember reading a hypothesis of why many middle eastern countries generate so many young angry jihadists is that most of the young men had never had a stable interactions with women in their youth. Most grew up in socially conservative environments and missed out on the stabilizing effect of having relationships with women, not having a sexual output, not having reasons to stay alive for a girl at home, or even missing out on having a female perspective on things (women are arguably less war-prone than men).&lt;p&gt;Middle eastern young males obviously experience a different social environment than black men do but I&amp;#x27;m curious if stable relationships with women really do lead to less violence&amp;#x2F;crime by males? Or is that merely hopeful thinking by social conservatives?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>haliou</author><text>I remember a debate about high achieving black women &amp;quot;marrying down&amp;quot; (with school dropout black guys on low income) or &amp;quot;marrying out&amp;quot; with white guys.&lt;p&gt;Attitude seems to be changing for the better anyway.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s also an article [0] on the subject that cause quite a stir back in 2011.&lt;p&gt;[0]:&lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.npr.org&amp;#x2F;2011&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;137499303&amp;#x2F;author-tells-black-women-marry-out-not-down&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.npr.org&amp;#x2F;2011&amp;#x2F;06&amp;#x2F;29&amp;#x2F;137499303&amp;#x2F;author-tells-black-w...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>