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Comment by ronnier | Hacker News Reader

The state of men in the US is really deteriorating. Men are drugging, drinking, and smoking theirselves to death. And sometimes the death is very explicit, being by suicide which is climbing to rates higher than ever. Prisons are filled with men, universities are increasingly seeing fewer men than women. Men are increasingly sexless much longer than females. Seems we have a big problem on our hands.

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The problems you've listed all seem like symptoms of a single ailment: the brutal stratified economy that most Americans now have to navigate. Things like incarceration and suicide are just male-specific facets of a general decline in living standards.

Driveby conservative and liberal punditry regards men as uniquely targeted/at fault for their lots respectively, but I don't think this sex-specific interrogation yields any real solutions. At least not compared to universal class-based politics, which addresses the root of the issue rather than the way the problem manifests for a particular demographic.

This isn't a popular sentiment, and is getting downvoted, but none of these statements appears to be false.

The state of things does seem rather demoralizing, and it does weigh on me. (I think women suffer equally and will eventually catch up on this problem.)

Some of this has affected me very personally. Subjectively, it feels like I drink a lot to ameliorate these affects. I'm aware that statistically it will shorten my life, but living a shorter, less painful life is a hard alternative to give up.

I have no answers, and I don't think there are any.

[Study link: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acer.14239 Beware the awful log-scaling of plots.]

well to be honest, when the media which includes print, broadcast, news, and even movies, portray men in a bad light over and over and over it can have an effect.

many parts of the legal system and quasi legal system; think colleges; de facto treat men differently. this is especially true in cases of divorce, domestic violence, and campus issues.

this is not to say there are not many cases where the outcome is correct but there are too many instances where the deck is stacked against them before they even get to the table.

From TFA: "Some of the greatest increases were found among women ..."

On a percentage basis, yes. In terms of absolute numbers, it appears that men are still "winning".

I do expect women to catch up--despair is ultimately an equal-opportunity killer.

Prohibition was the result of women fed up with drunk men the first time around

I suspect you're getting downvoted because, while you might be correct, nothing in the article supports this, and it could therefore be considered off topic.

In this case though, most of the increases were among women.

Don't forget eating themselves to death, overeating and sugar intake are also a big problem.

> The state of men in the US is really deteriorating. Men are drugging, drinking, and smoking theirselves to death.

It's very strange that the same people who advocated libertarianism and complete freedom years ago when men were in complete control, are now advocating for collectivism and support when they are in trouble.

The conservative/libertarian view should be that if men want to drink themselves to death, the government should not get involved.

Very interesting that this particular truthful sentiment is being downvoted so heavily - a large portion of the world's male population needs assistance, and nothing you said here is false.

At least we still have our penises.

Don't give them any ideas...

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