Hacker News Reader

Comment by midtake | Hacker News Reader

I strongly oppose all comments that seem to have the causal relationship reversed, that somehow by some biological effect they are now more depressed than in the past. I think that instead the extreme demands of society are the cause and that suffering in silence is the result.

What do you expect when most men have been priced out of a happy life? What do you expect when most men are villainized in the stories that dominate narratives in modern media? What do you expect when men are uniquely dehumanized and calling men less-than is okay regarding height, looks, money, or outward masculinity? If anything I am surprised that the numbers indicating suffering in silence aren't worse.

View on HN

The leader of the New Zealand Green Party once stated "I am a violence prevention minister and I know who causes violence in the world, it is white, cis men."

I strongly believe (or hope) that in the future the idea of viewing everything through a lens of group theory and identifying who has privilege and who suffers the most in terms of stereotypical cohorts, which is the dominant medium for attributing blame in society at large now, will be viewed by future societies with disdain.

> "I am a violence prevention minister and I know who causes violence in the world, it is white, cis men."

That may well be true, but its also true that the main victims of that violence are "white, cis men"

But people love to lump other people together by shallow characteristics because looking at individuals is hard, and looking at systems individuals live in.

Downvote me all you want, pessimism is never popular but its often right.

It's a zero-sum game. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is pursuing power. Power means different things, in different contexts, but it always gets back to power.

The most obvious form of power is resources and money. But there are so many other forms. These identity and gender issues we've seen over the last 10 years have absolutely, undoubtedly been at the core about one thing: power.

Now before you get all upset, pursuing power isn't always a bad thing. If you've been historically marginalized, aren't you within your right as a human being to seek equality? The question really is in how you do it, and who suffers as a result, and how far you take it. It's very easy to swing the pendulum back too far, and end up in a society that may or may not be any better but just different.

Your comment isn't saying anything though. Everything is about power. Noted.

Being able to say that as a political figure and not getting an unequivocal drumming down by everyone else shows how far gone the west is. There is no turning this ship around.

I hope you agree it's because she identified a demographic group of as causing a lot of problems, not because of which group she chose, right? The most powerful man in the world is blaming trans women for half the world's ills and we can all agree they're both bad statements?

Well, if she deliberately singled out this specific group to appeal to certain voters, then it makes perfect sense to be angry about it. In principle, it's no different from racists or bigots targeting minorities and blaming them for society's problems.

I'd guess that's exactly what's happening here. She could have simply said "men," which would have been a truthful statement. Instead, she specifically said "white cis men," which is a blatant lie.

It's the same tactic as blaming everything on immigrants or Roma people. You know what your voters already believe and what they want to hear, so you tell them exactly that. You reinforce their prejudices to win their support.

It's Horseshoe theory again and again.

Maga and woke are two sides of the same retarded coin. Choosing some group and blaming them for everything bad in the entire universe.

Somehow many people think the problem is choosing the wrong group. Nope; the problem is choosing a group, full stop.

Is it even possible to step back from this level of polarization? Centrists quickly get shoved into one side or the other depending on where their funding or family loyalties are. It just keeps ratcheting up when I start to think it's starting to level off

Honestly, yes I think it is possible for things to get better because they have frankly been FAR worse, for reference see most of human history. Most of us lived our formative years in an era of unprecedented peace, we currently find ourselves in an era of transition which often leads to periods of tribalism and strife.

I suppose that's the long and short of it. Material excess just gives us a break from tribalism, but it's always there just under the surface. I'll try to share your optimism

> Material excess just gives us a break from tribalism

Material excess is what gives many people a means to express their tribalism in the way that they do instead of being occupied with some productive activity for the common good.

This, this right here! A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

The New Zealand Green Party got 13.3% of the vote. I could pull all sorts of absolute drivel from any party in any country of the world that got ~ 13.3% of the vote.

Declaring "the west gone" is something better left on a reactionary platform like X, rather than something like Hacker News.

Seems like a fairly high percentage for a green party. Are you saying it was low because of their comments? Did they lose media support or have to apologize?

I'm not well-read on New Zealand politics outside of the broadest strokes (e.g. positive indigenous involvement). I would imagine very few people on this forum are well-read on New Zealand politics, given the demographics that we can probably collectively safely assume.

> Seems like a fairly high percentage for a green party.

Which makes this statement, unless you're well-read on New Zealand politics, pretty strange. Do you even know if they have something like ranked choice voting, or vote-for-party rather than vote-for-candidate, that could greatly impact the performance of smaller national parties?

I don't know about white and cis, but you can't argue with facts that men are overwhelmingly the source of individual violence (as opposed to wars, etc.).

There are many kinds of violence, of which physical is but one. Arguably not all dominated by men.

Physical violence is the only thing that everyone agrees is violence. Threats of physical violence are also probably considered violence by a majority, though such judgements are often conditional on the credibility of the threat.

Manipulating state power to deprive people of essentials is also arguably violence, since the state's power is ultimately realized in its monopoly on the same.

Saying mean things to people may be abusive, but it isn't violence in the sense that an unqualified reference generally means.

> Physical violence is the only thing that everyone agrees is violence

For a very long time, everyone agreed that ADHD was defined in how it manifested in males. It is a very limited way to view the world and it create all kind of illogical conclusions that doesn't make any sense.

Bisexual women are statically twice as physical violent when in relationship with women then when with men. Similar, bisexual men are half as physical violent when in relationship with men, compared to relationships with women. The crime statistics are clear here, and yet, it makes absolute zero sense that how physical violent a person is depend on the gender of their partner.

There is however some explanations for the statistics if one start to view the spectrum of violent behavior, the underlying causes, and how and when it escalate into physical violence.

In the last election cycle, major political party and pundits made it their agenda to frame male violence as good manly man thing.

>What do you expect when most men have been priced out of a happy life?

Most PEOPLE are being priced out of a happy life. I'm not aware of any "man tax" men are having to pay when they go out to eat, or when buying groceries, or renting/paying their mortgage.

Your anger is misplaced. You we're raised to believe that a mans job was to earn a high enough income to provide for their family, and now that shit is expensive, that perception society forced unto you makes you feel like a "failure". You're not a failure, you're just someone living in a capitalist society.

>What do you expect when most men are villainized in the stories that dominate narratives in modern media?

Most men are not being made up as villains. This reads like your algorithm/news feed is trying to enrage you.

Are there idiots out there who are attributing the wrongdoings of certain men, and/or the issues of men as a whole to individuals? Yes, but that some idiots voice their opinions on social media is nothing new, nor is it unique to men to be unfairly judged on the internet. Every demographic has bullshit thrown their way these days.

look at the sibling comment

> You're not a failure, you're just someone living in a capitalist society.

I think I need that on a T-shirt.

Men and their ideals, are portrayed as inherently evil in a good chunk of western media. It's pretty obvious to anyone looking at the West from the outside.

It's also a reason why the West is failing, but certainly not the only one. Social Welfare states like Europe are burning, since it was never sustainable.

America is fighting among itself, because there is no Asabiyyah (social cohesion), and the wealth inequality (wealth pump) is growing massively.

Compare that with China or Singapore, where social harmony is perhaps the most important thing in their society, food is subsidized, education as a high priority, their laws are punitive, infrastructure is extremely new, etc.

That’s a crazy comment for me.

I don’t think you’re open for a discussion but I’ll try; just judging from experience talking to other people who hold similar entrenched beliefs, I might be very wrong.

> Social Welfare states like Europe are burning

I live there and wasn’t aware that it’s burning - Europe also isnt a singular entity.

> the West is failing

I wasn’t aware of that either! Seems to me that western countries (I assume you mean US and EU with that?) still hold most of the power worldwide?

> Men and their ideals, are portrayed as inherently evil in a good chunk of western media

The opposite is also true. I think it’s just because most heroes and villains in western media are men - hell most characters are men.

Men are interested in things, while women are interested in people. That's probably why most characters are men overall. Same with men being more likely to be Autistic.

That being said, it's quite noticeable that people in the entertainment sector, who are probably marginalized, are directing some anger against men.

Ghostbusters 2016, likely started this, and I do wonder if it was to appease the women and other groups after the the #Metoo movement, where marginalized people were given a voice, to pretend that Hollywood was like them (they aren't, look at their governmental funding before #Metoo).

> Men are interested in things, while women are interested in people.

Seems like a generalisation. I’m a man and I’m more interested in people than in things for example.

> That's probably why most characters are men overall.

How does this follow what you wrote before; I don’t see any connection tbh

If men are into things, then they likely are into abstractions, concepts, ideas, etc. Stories are one of these. I remember there's neurological evidence to back this up, but I have no links on me currently.

France is burning because they're defaulting and can't pay for their social welfare benefits, and Germany's economy isn't doing so well. That's a good chunk of Europe's economy in a nutshell. Only Poland I believe, has improved and officially was considered developed since 2018.

France's West African colonies are also leaving France as they inch closer to China, politically and economically.

China is rising, and so are other (previously and currently) Third World nations. It's a matter of when they take power, not if. India and Indonesia seem to be heavy hitters, for now and probably for the near future. I wouldn't count out Africa (Nigeria, Kenya, Botswana, Rwanda) or Latin America (Mexico, El Salvador, Brazil, etc).

I stand by my statement of Western entertainment demeaning men, probably out of anger, or as something of an alibi for Hollywood after the #Metoo movement. Occupy Wallstreet is also notable for happening before this.

Germany has the third largest GDP worldwide so I don’t think it’s “not doing so well” considering how tiny it is.

China/Asia, South America and Africa have the most space, people and natural resources so it just makes sense that they would be more successful in the long run though.

>I stand by my statement

That is fair. I stand by mine that this doesn’t convince me. Of course men are the villains when they hold the most power. You can’t really be an effective or convincing villain if you’re powerless.

Germany made its money through high end production (which is handled by Asia) and its Mittelstand (which like most of the West, is starting to slow down massively).

Germany is still in a good position for Europe, but it can't compete as well as it once did compared to Asia or the US. Even then, the US is having issues with China.

"Of course men are the villains when they hold the most power."

I agree with the statement, but not the context.

Looking at Velma, Dragon Age: Veilguard, Ghostbusters 2016, Star Wars sequels, She-Hulk, and much more, a good chunk of such Western media feels like they have some disdain for a large portion of fans who watch them.

Like a Superiority complex formed out of deeprooted insecurities of their feelings towards men.

You could argue men have reacted to this in the same way, especially in Instagram and the like.

If you're going to use art to back up your point that society hates men, then there is a literal mountain of artwork throughout humanity that vilifies women.

Nobody should be villified for who they are born as, especially on Mainstream media. That's my point.

This is about a trend of the recent decades to reboot popular franchises with formerly male heroes and replace them with female versions (instead of, i.e. think up new female heroes).

If we're talking about where future art direction is going, then how much artwork from centuries ago exists is not relevant.

In that comment we have one example of this happening. The star wars sequels are an example of thinking up new female heroes.

Surely if this is indeed a good chunk of western media you would need to reach for an example from a decade ago.

> I live there and wasn’t aware that it’s burning - Europe also isnt a singular entity.

As a resident of Portland OR, I'm all too familiar with people pointing to protests confined to a few downtown city blocks as evidence of the entire city being burned to the ground.

Seems like France/Europe is currently suffering from that same sort of propaganda. "Europe is so far gone because thr Gucci store in Paris got looted and some cop cars burned."

Historically, French protests have always been rowdy and widespread. I don't think Portland's protests were even close to what France has seen.

French protests are known for their ferocity in European context, yes. But what was dominant in the recent weeks were not protests, it was the rioting. Obviously.

People protesting poor school conditions don't burn down their schools or random public buildings.

Protests and Riots in France make little historical distinctions ever since the invention of the Guillotine.

It's unspoken, but obvious in their culture, to almost act barbaric in protests.

Your description seems to ignore that a historic town hall that survived two world wars was invaded and torched, and burnt to the ground, and that entire neighbourhoods -public spaces- in major cities have been turned into warzones from weeks of riots involving hundreds of thousands of people, causing extensive property damage, widespread feeling of insecurity and environmental damage.

Your takeaway from this was apparently 'looted luxury store and burned cop cars'.

Is it your source of news that's to blame for that misapprehension, or your personal stance on things?

edit: typo

What are "men and their ideals"?

The sex ration of completed suicides in the USSR as a whole between 1984 to 1990 was 3,9 men to 1 women.

That is, near exactly the same as in the 'capitalist' world then, and now.

(In the Slavic-predominant part of the USSR, that is Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, it was an even worse 4,6-to-1. Somewhat lower in Central Asia at ~2,7-to-1).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com