Archetypal conservatism: condemn the effect, ignore the cause.

Why are we losing a whole generation of young men to video games? Because they occupy a sphere devoid of accomplishment. Why do they occupy a sphere devoid of accomplishment? Because the remuneration and achievement of entry-level employment has been value-engineered away. Why has the remuneration and achievement of entry-level employment been value-engineered away? Because shareholder value has replaced economic and social stability as the dominant goal of stakeholders. Why has shareholder value replaced economic and social stability as the dominant goal of stakeholders?

Because your parents fought WWII and then gave you everything so you never had to work for it, you selfish fucks, which means you don't understand what you're taking from everyone else.

Got picked up by a Lyft the other day. Infiniti Q50, dealer sticker still on. Young, attractive, distracted 20-year-old girl driving it. Now, it's possible that she staked that thing on her own and is entrepreneurealing her way up the ladder to... exactly where she is now. But it's also possible that Daddy helped her with a loan so she could get on her feet and earn a little nest-egg while she spends 2 years living at home sending out resumes waiting for an entry-level unpaid internship in whatever her degree is in.

When I was a kid, I substituted on a paper route. It was good for $20-$30 a day. But I haven't seen kids delivering newspapers in 20 years. For one thing, nobody reads newspapers. For another, there are grown-ass men who need that money.

If there's a long line of grown-ass men competing for a job that got handed to me when I was 11, I'm not going to begin to throw shade at a dude who plays Modern Warfare while he hopelessly throws resumes down the nowhere hole. Especially since he's competing against my girl in Daddy's Brand New Q50.

So much wrong with what the author says.

I'm not even going to bother providing specific quotes. "Games are awful, and young men are getting absorbed by them instead of being productive members of society" is the tone the article takes while exploring nothing. It's not journalism: it's a "look at my superiority complex" contest.

Funny thing, though: the embedded article - "Why more young men aren't working - video games" - uses the photo of a guy playing pre-2016 Dota 2 that's on the monitor, blurred. I'm gonna pull a Devac and tell you that because, even in the thumbnail, I can clearly recognize the death info screen with one of the game's heroes', Slark's, face plastered all over it. Plus all the small things: the old HUD, for example. But also he's not even playing it: it's a Twitch stream of a guy playing Sniper or something while the ads and the donation count run alongside the interface.

Anyway. "Video games are the plague of this generation" is a sentiment people too old to understand or engage in it espouse when they can't be bothered to produce any meaningful thought on the subject. George Carlin during his last HBO special (after his 70th birthday, might I add) said that people can be old when they're thirty, blabbering and complaining about things as a way to justify their miserable existence.

There are things wrong with video games as an industry currently - but providing escapism and Internet-level international communication are not some of them.

I'm just going to add NYPost to the list of "newspapers" to ignore. Thanks for letting me know.

Men aged 21 to 30 worked 12 percent fewer hours in 2015 than in 2000.

U-6 was 7% in Jul 2000, 10.3% in Jul 2015.

That's not video games. That's the economy.

Warning: Sophomoric Ramblings Ahead

I saw this posted the other night, last night? This morning? Shit, I dunno, this weekend has been a blur, but I've been rolling things around in my head a bit since I've read this.

I read an opinion piece the other day, I think The Guardian, that threw out the statistic that if you were born in America in the '50s, you had a 90% chance to exceed your parents' income. If you were born in the '80s, that dropped to 50%. I can only assume it's been dropping since. Just throwing that out there, though I don't know how accurate it is.

I've been pretty bitter the past few years. House hunting and job hunting simultaneously and coming up with nasty disappointment on both fronts does a lot to color my perception. It's not about the money. It never has been. It's about respect. All I want is a job where when people ask me what I do for a living, and I tell them, their eyes light up and say "Wow. That's an interesting job," and then follow up with questions out of genuine interest and not some awkward feeling of social obligation to propel a conversation forward. I don't want a big house, or a fancy house. I just want a solid house. Hell, I'd be willing to give up over half the stuff I own to live in a small house, just as long as I have a house. There's something about owning your own place, not living with others, not paying a landlord, that says "You see this guy? He has his shit together and he made it." I got neither. It makes me feel like a bum and a failure as a husband sometimes, though I know Dala doesn't hold it against me.

People talk about movements on here and other places on the internet all the time. Tiny houses. Sharing economies. Community gardens. This that and the other. I sometimes wonder if people are pursuing these things out of an equal sense of desire for simplicity and smallness, acceptance of their fate that they have to do more with less, and an embracing of creativity and entrepreneurship.

This weekend I paid for my gas with the random handful of bills I had in my wallet, not because I'm broke, but because that's what I had on me at the time. It wasn't near enough to fill up my tank. It reminded me of when I was broke and I was kind of nostalgic for it. I hate the fear of being broke and never want to go back to that, but I miss being forced to be simple. I have too many books and antiques and stuff. I'm constantly getting rid of it. I'm constantly getting more. I'm constantly getting frustrated with myself about it. I don't know how to break the cycle and I've been trying for years.

Sometimes I wonder if being forced to do more with less will eventually be good for America. I think we have too much. A few months back, I drove through the part of town with the multi-million dollar mansions. They're obscene. I found myself frustrated with the people inside because I don't think they deserve their money, because even if they came by it honestly, they also came by it because they're willing participants in a system that exploits others. Here, there, yesterday, tomorrow. Then they take this money and buy things they don't need instead of using it to try and fix the world. It seems so unjust. Then I look at myself, with my nice car, my nice food, my overwhelming collection of stuff, and I think, to someone else somewhere else, they'd look at me and think I'm being just as obscene.

The thoughts in that last paragraph have been on my mind for months now. I've just been trying to figure out how to share them without sounding like a melodramatic child.

So since francopoli posted this, I think about the job. I think about the house. I think about what I want versus what I already have versus what other people want and have or don't have and then I don't know what to think anymore. But I think it might be time to be done complaining, because complaining doesn't fix things for me or for anyone else, it just adds to the frustration and resentment. But if I stop complaining, then I have to start asking questions, and if I start asking questions, I have to start figuring out how to answer them.

That takes introspection. That takes work. That takes commitment. That's big and scary. When I think about those things, then look at people who avoid life's problems through entertainment or drugs, or people who blame others instead of asking themselves questions, I don't know if I can really fault them for it. After all, in a way, isn't that kind of what we all do in our day to day lives? Distract ourselves? Make excuses? Pass the buck . . ?

This comment section is like some kind of Marxist gamer form of redpillism.

I'd do any job before I'd do no job with few exceptions. I wouldn't be a prison guard but I can't think of much else below my threshold of dignity or morality.

Sure the social contract is failing but if you aren't willing to try and hold up your own part (having a job and not being a useless sponge) no good will ever come to you.

Yes it's harder than ever to make a living wage but I have nothing but contempt for a mamma's boy couch slug.

You all can donate your money to the Poor Disadvantaged Gamer Welfare Fund in twenty years when they are homeless and littering our streets, begging for a wifi password to get a phone fix but I'm not going to have much mercy.

totally agree with you. children sit at home and do not go outside playing these games. I once had a dependency on video games too, but I found hobbies and games were pushed to the background