A 30 or 40 year old man who's spent decades playing video games in his mom's basement without developing marketable skills or experience is unlikely to have the problems associated with getting married.

Can't wait for the media to weaponize this article and/or his research for another set of gamer-bashing hit pieces.

It is funny to see him get so close to what is happening and still be so far away. Michelle actually hits a bit closer but still misses. He is documenting the MGTOW movement.

Men in general are much less materialistic than women. The acquisition and display of wealth are largely secondary sexual characteristics intended to attract a mate. When most men give up on attracting a mate they also give up on anything beyond subsistence living. Which welfare quite amply covers for now.

The real issue is going to crop up as these men's parents die. They lack the skills to get a job. Many of them will not be able to continue their lifestyle without parental support. So they will have to sell the house, move into subsidized housing, and go on welfare. So in about 20 years you will see a sharply increasing percentage of the population on welfare. National budgets are already stretched. Adding millions to the welfare rolls will cause problems.

As for Mr. Hurst, no wonder he has trouble 'determining what the right policy response'. He has misdiagnosed the root cause. Technology is a side show here. The main effect video games have had is to disperse this population group thus keeping crime down. Historically when society created groups of idle men like this they gathered on street corners, getting drunk, and engaging in petty crime. Through the magic of video games we've kept them dispersed huddled in 'mom's basement' so to speak. They only annoy their parents and aren't out shoplifting and peeing in public. The only downside to video games is they've let society ignore this problem for so long.

Men in general are much less materialistic than women. The acquisition and display of wealth are largely secondary sexual characteristics intended to attract a mate. When most men give up on attracting a mate they also give up on anything beyond subsistence living.

Well-put, Ben. And exactly right.

The real issue is going to crop up as these men's parents die. They lack the skills to get a job. Many of them will not be able to continue their lifestyle without parental support. ~ Ben at July 18, 2016 5:25 AM

So, we'll have 40-year-old guys without the skills or experience to get anything beyond an entry-level job. And those entry-level jobs will probably be gone by then as minimum wage laws force employers to automate the least-skilled tasks.

As a result, we'll have a pool of 20-somethings with no skills or experience competing with people their parents' age for the few non-skilled jobs remaining.

If the current education trends continue, it will mostly be men in this predicament.

Extrapolating further, we'll have a large pool of moderately-skilled women competing for a smaller pool of moderately-skilled men for purposes of marriage and/or children. And that smaller pool will begin to recognize its value and hold out for the best deal.

The highly skilled will live in exclusive enclaves and interact with their lesser brethren only once in a while - at the office or when they need human labor for something. Security and high prices will keep those enclaves riffraff-free.

To me the video games have taken away the need that young men used to have to "see the world" by hitting the road and taking low wage jobs and living day to day.

Leaving home used to be the ticket "out of there". Now it's an Xbox and a smart phone in Mom's basement.

But that's their free will choice as they know what they are doing. Instead of escaping their boyhood home for an "unknown" adventure they kill orcs in their own minds.

I see two logical fallacies in the article. The first is the assumption that all non-college-educated men are low-skill. That does not take into account men who have gone into a trade. (I've been doing some Web searches trying to find the percentage of American men who work in a trade, but all the results I keep getting are stuff like "Why college educated women can't find a man to marry". Right now I don't have the patience to play with search terms or go through pages and pages of results.)

The second is the assumption that all of the unemployed men that he describes are willingly unemployed. Doubtless there is a percentage that, while they may be enjoying their leisure time, would rather be working and self-sufficient. I'm not convinced that the author's satisfaction surveys really succeeded in teasing that out. Why wouldn't these men be going to school? Perhaps because they've seen their college-educated cohort saddled with six-figure student loans and still not able to find employment.

And yeah, 12 hours a week really isn't that much... plenty of people, both in past generations and now, watch TV more than that.

Uncle Sam made sure I was going somewhere - school, South East Asia, or Canada; but I wasn't staying in the basement.

To me the video games have taken away the need that young men used to have to "see the world" by hitting the road and taking low wage jobs and living day to day. ~ Bob in Texas at July 18, 2016 6:43 AM

Those low wage jobs were never very exciting, no matter where or how you travelled to get it. No matter how exciting Steinbeck or Kerouac or London made it sound, mendin' fences is still work. And joining the Army usually means more KP than combat.

Video games offer a level of excitement not matched by anything a low skill untrained person can otherwise do. The real Army requires some training and education before they turn you loose with a machine gun. You have to get in shape and stay in shape. You have to prove that you won't go nuts and kill everyone in sight, even your own guys. You have to meet a standard.

Video games give you that excitement without training, without requiring that you pass a test or study something.

@Uncle Dave,

Try searching the web using Bing or DuckDuckGo. As of lately, Google has been skewing my searches when it comes to social/feminist issues/bias. Don't use Yahoo! because it relies on Google.

Michelle wrote:

A 30 or 40 year old man who's spent decades playing video games in his mom's basement without developing marketable skills or experience is unlikely to have the problems associated with getting married.

Hilarious — and true.

Cousin Dave,

I don't see many useful numbers in what he said. So I don't know how well he is measuring things. I do know he doesn't yet understand what he is measuring.

On the self satisfaction surveys, he is correct. The majority of young MGTOW men are relatively happy. They aren't pinning over the woman they will never marry. They've given up on that. It is a decision that's been made and is in the past and no longer relevant. So it doesn't impact their current happiness.

On the willing unemployment, yes they are quite happy to not be employed. While they wouldn't turn down some free money there just isn't the motivation to go get more. If you try and work on getting these guys into the workforce you will get a bunch of pie in the sky plans that are guaranteed to fail. If you try and implement their impossible plans they will actively work to sabotage them. If you offer them a job they won't show up. They don't want more work, more responsibility, or really more money. It just isn't important.

"So, we'll have 40-year-old guys without the skills or experience to get anything beyond an entry-level job."

Not quite right Conan. They will never compete for jobs. They will compete for section 8 housing and food stamps.

"To me the video games have taken away the need that young men used to have to "see the world" by hitting the road and taking low wage jobs and living day to day."

How many people ever did that? I know books are written about it but really how many people are we talking about? As far as I can tell video games replace alcohol, or at least reduce the demand.

The best analogy I've come up with for (most) MGTOW men is medieval monks. They have their simple clothes and their simple past times and they brew their own beer. They have little to no interest in the rest of society (which unfortunately can bleed into their hygiene). The so called 'mom's basement' is their cave/monastery and the rest of the world is irrelevant.

I don't want to be a Debbie downer, but as far as I can tell you will never get these guys to reintegrate with society. They will never have a career. They will never have a family. All we can do is warehouse them till they pass from old age. If someone else has a better solution I'm all ears. Quite frankly I'm half terrified of my kids going that way.

I see this as a huge parenting problem. If these guys were kicked out of the house, they'd suddenly find a job and get inspired to be able to feed, clothe, and support themselves so they can play their games at night in their own homes like the rest of the population instead of a homeless shelter. Say what you want, but to me it looks like parents are infantilizing their boys and it's coming back to bite everyone in the butt. Shocking.

Hmm.. Makes me think that these could also be a Western version of the Herbivore Men from Japan:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2009/06/the_herbivores_dilemma.html

Video games have castrated men the way religion never could.

Not quite right Conan. They will never compete for jobs. They will compete for section 8 housing and food stamps. ~ Ben at July 18, 2016 10:01 AM

When the parents die, some of them are going to have to get out of the house and get a job. Not all of them will qualify for SNAP and Section 8.

But, yeah, you're probably right. The bulk of their post-parent energy that isn't spent of video games will be spent on filing out government forms for SNAP and Section 8. Persistence, I'm told, is the key to getting accepted. And, unemployable, they'll have all day to spend battling the bureaucracy. They'll work harder at that than at anything they've ever done.

This is why entitlements are going to bankrupt us. The qualification hurdles are getting lower and the pool of applicants is getting larger. These young men won't qualify to get a job, so they'll be unemployable and, thus, eligible for government assistance.

Ben,

A lot of "men" left home for the military service, Merchant Marines, Peace Corps, Works Progress Administration jobs ('till '39), working on freighters going to South America, heading to Memphis, New Orleans, L.A. for music/arts/acting (just read Jimmy Buffet's "A Pirate Looks At Fifty", hell I almost took a cruise ship job in 1969 and I was in the sticks, and so on.

"Then Came Bronson", "Easy Rider" and "Route 66" inspired a lot of wanderlust for certain ages.

It was the locales and the unknown (plus images of beautiful local women) not the wages that attracted those young men.

On the other hand:

Hundreds Of Men Sleeping On Streets Of Queens For Shot At Plumbers Union Apprenticeship Program

“The ‘A’ guys top out at $67 an hour. The ‘B’ guys top out at $40 an hour,” Anthony Sala said.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/07/17/plumbers-union-apprenticeship-program/

The early arrivers showed up on Saturday. One fellow interviewed showed up on Sunday, and ball parked 1,200+ already in line in front of him. It is a first-come first-served application process.

Quite frankly I'm half terrified of my kids going that way.

Make sure when they're old enough to work that they do so. Either for you, at home, or for someone else for money. To coin a phrase, hunger sharpens one's focus in the way few things can.

This is why entitlements are going to bankrupt us.

Not worried about that. By the time they get to that point in life, the system will be so broken that government will cease to function, or that your subsidies will be so small compared to the price of good and services to be of little use.

Maybe pay for a loaf of bread.

The most fascinating passage is the last—

I am currently working to document this phenomenon, but there is a real challenge in determining what the right policy response might be to address the underlying issues.

This Chicago academic, from the School of Business, is collecting information about a remarkable trend with consequences for millions of lives.... "But" before even writing it up up, he's compelled to warn us about the "real" challenge in determining what the "right" POLICY response might be.

The professor of business (!) isn't concerned with how commerce itself might respond to this change, ameliorating bad effects and containing any further decline. No... Because he's an academic, not a businessman, his first allegiance is to "policy"... Not even to truth-telling through his own (publicly-financed) research. Basically, he wants to be one of the government figures he already works for.

This guy is completely submerged in the most contemporary of religions, policy. He's already a priest, insulated from the coarse, vulgar threats of market competition. But he dreams of the bishop's chair, where his pronouncements and directives can warp the lives of fellow citizens without so much as a requirement to publish beforehand. He serves his prelates, not his students, or even his public.

In reverse order:

Yep Crid. It's pretty cloying isn't it. For those guys government is the only solution.

I agree about the work suggestion IRA. It is why I'm only half afraid. A lot of people I grew up with have gone this route. I didn't because my parents had standards, clearly communicated them, and enforced them. They showed me how to get a job and why certain behaviors were important. If you do all that this isn't an issue.

Apologies Bob. I didn't understand. The key thing you are missing is "plus images of beautiful local women". These guys have given up on women. Once that happens the drive vanishes.

Ppen, it isn't video games. It is feminism. Especially feminism in the schools. Video games are a side line.

Sixclaws, I suspect you are right. These people aren't asexual by biology. Those tend to do just fine. These are heterosexuals who've given up on achieving sex.

Gooseegg, You are right. The key thing I've seen in every case of this is the parents deferring to the schools. They let the schools instill the morals and value systems. But under those feminist rules men are inherently evil. They are inherently worthless. With that complete lack of self respect and despair they give up on being worthy of sex. The crazy thing is getting sex doesn't seem to fix it.

In the end I think Hurst is right that government policy will be key in stopping this. But probably not how he would envision it. Charter schools are probably the best solution. You break the education monoculture and stop training men to be worthless. But those who already are worthless are probably a write off.

I think Ben is on the right track as well as the Japanese Herbivore men. I also see/hear of a lot of slacker women though not nearly the number. One thing that looks to me to contribute to that is around it is much easier for a women to get a job as a server than it is a guy.

I see it in my nephew and his two friends. If some one isn't on my nephew to be doing something he will be playing video games...or if you managed to cut that off read a book like Harry Potter. He is fairly studious and gets great grades. The problem seems to have happened when he entered jr. high. He was quite popular in elementary but in jr. high he and his two friends are almost shunned it seems. My brother was worried he was going to have problems with girls... instead the boy just seems to have given up on anything social. Yes he has been taken to council ling. He has announced he is not going to move out and he is not going to go to college.

I don't of any one that went to do the see the world thing. I know who joined the military but none of it was to "see the world" -- most of them it was family tradition and needing something to get food.

Let's not forget that while the conservative Kay Hymowitz and others MAY attack men for not wanting to marry or to have children to support, it's still becoming more acceptable for men AND women not to want any children at all, so maybe it's just a matter of getting the right people together. (Women who don't want kids generally don't want to be full-time housewives either, so they do expect to support themselves.) In the meantime, one could argue that childfree women still face more prejudice for their decision - as opposed to not wanting to marry, per se.

Something I said elsewhere in 2013:

What anti-CF columnists such as Ross Douthat, Jonathan V. Last, and Betsy Hart often have in common is, they talk as if the drop in births (how is that a bad thing?) is WOMEN'S fault. Where is the evidence that more men than women WANT babies in the first place? Are wives supposed to trick their unwilling husbands? Great.

I think it's just easier now for CF people to find each other and marry. Happy marriages! Yay!

In the meantime:

http://www.herald-dispatch.com/features_entertainment/john-rosemond-decline-of-motivated-males-attributed-to-uninvolved-fathers/article_6337aa01-76ee-579d-8c23-4de0638f1465.html

"Decline of motivated males attributed to uninvolved fathers"

Second half of column:

"...The divorce rate has contributed greatly to the diminishment of male influence in child rearing, but the problem is compounded by divorced dads who, when they're with their kids, are little more than Good Time Charlies who are fountains of fun and games. The DisneyLand Dad winds up enforcing little if any accountability or responsibility and acts like the world is one big playground. This does not send a good message to children, especially sons.

"But even many of those dads who are involved, caring and in the home have unwitting diminished their ability to transmit masculine virtues to their sons by subscribing to the new ideal in American dad-hood, which is to be your children's best friend. Dad, your son doesn't need a 30- or 40-something-year-old buddy (this applies to your daughter as well). He needs a dad who steps up to the plate of leadership and swings the bat.

"Then there's what I term the Magnificent Maternal Micromanager, the mom who not only micromanages her children's lives from morning til night, but micromanages her husband as well, directing him as to how to be a father. The result is almost inevitably a Milquetoast dad who's allowed himself to be stripped of masculine virtue. He's his wife's 'parenting aide' and his children's buddy: not a child, but not quite an adult either.

"That's the short list. There's more--surely enough to fill a book. The bottom line is that we have a growing crisis on our hands, one that only America's parents can fix. That's going to require a completely new set of self-imposed marching orders. Unfortunately, bad habits die hard."

Oh, and regarding what I said about conservative anti-CF columnists, the late Angry Harry was one of them:

http://www.angryharry.com/Feminism-And-Falling-Birth-Rates.htm

Again, he doesn't seem to think that men who don't WANT children exist. Really?

(He barely mentions men at all!)

Not to mention that, as blogger Sylvia Lucas once implied, a lot of men would likely be happy to forfeit the prestige of fatherhood if they thought they'd really have to change half the diapers - or do half the managing of bored, screaming preschoolers. (Her title was "He Says He Wants Kids - But Does He Mean, 'I want YOU to have kids'?")

Nice non sequitur Lenona.

Lenona, I want whatever brand of coffee you're drinking.

To be a little more fair to you Lenona there are two population groups termed MGTOW. Note Hurst says these people are happy. angryharry.com doesn't exactly fit that mold. (He's not Happy Harry, last of the hobos. But that's another story.) The people Hurst is studying don't comment on angryharry.com or avoiceformen.com or any of the other MRA websites. These aren't MRA people. But they are MGTOW.

This has nothing to do with your perennial fears of babies, conservatives, and MRA activists.

there are two population groups termed MGTOW. Note Hurst says these people are happy. angryharry.com doesn't exactly fit that mold.
________________________________________

Of course not. He wasn't part of MGTOW. He had a (female?) partner. For all I know, he was even married to her.

Which is not to say he didn't SYMPATHIZE with MGTOW...

And plenty of MRAs have said that even those men who have never heard of MRAs are still acting like them when they vote with their feet.

Ok Lenona. I'll accept your correction. I'm not familiar with Angry Harry except in the most vague of senses. You are correct. Your comments were completely beside the point.

The MRAs can claim whatever they feel like. It doesn't make them right. Gays can claim everyone is secretly gay. They aren't any more correct. These guys are not MRAs. They share no common objectives.