[drzaiusapelord]

Only because we don't take social currency as seriously as monetary currency. In a world where financial incentives don't matter, you'll have other incentives. We can see this in video games where people half-kill themselves to get some status or armor or whatever. Or how wealthy people take up charity work or compete on social status points like who holds the better parties or decorates the home better.

>if you judge by the NEETs of today.

I think its pretty obvious that NEETs are very much in denial, or have no access to, the mental healthcare they need. We also need to accept that a lot of people on the autism spectrum will end up as NEET-like and there's probably nothing to be done about it.

[TeMPOraL]

I would probably be a NEET (or barely E-human) if it wasn't for SSRIs, despite being a (I think) competent programmer who wrote code since being 13 years old. Medication lets me manage my disdain for what a typical human like me has to do to earn their bread - mostly pointless, mostly useless (or even socially harmful, hello ad world) stuff. I'm in tech, but I know some people who are close to being NEET and are on the more "artsy" side. I suspect some of that comes from lack of mental strength to handle the reality that you need to suck it up and waste 1/2 of your day, every day, doing stuff of dubious value, in order to stay a respectable (and fed) human being.

(In case you think this is just laziness, it's not - look at the hobby craft world. People can do a lot of hard, difficult work, as long as they have any say in what they do. It seems that a lot of people crave more autonomy now.)

That's why I'm hopeful about basic income idea - it seems like a way to give more autonomy to people who do not have the grit to fight for it on the job market. A way to channel this untapped productivity.

[projektir]

Indeed, but I think also the mental strength tends to get sapped when the thing you're doing is pointless and/or socially harmful. Some people may delude themselves into thinking that their work is worthwhile even when it isn't. It's generally easier to live life when you think you're doing the right thing and everything makes sense.

[M_Grey]

Truly, "NEET" is a mental health issue in almost every case; when you look at it carefully it seems like a terrible way to live. Being utterly disconnected from your peers and potential social contacts is just not good for the human animal.

[spicytunacone]

I came from a comment on a more recent story[0] so I realize I am a bit late, but what about being a NEET implies social disconnection? I believe you're thinking of shut-ins or hikkikomori[1] if you want to keep in line with the parlance. NEET can simply mean someone is unemployed or "between jobs" as you will, which my undergraduate microeconomics courses told me is a normal occurence (cyclic economies, employer/employee mismatches over time). Whether they get money from the government or live off their family, plenty of my peers during bouts of unemployment would still go out.

I realize it's colloquial to continue the bastardization of NEET to mean someone who has withdrawn from society, though I feel the nuance requires particular attention especially if we're attempting to diagnose problems and propose solutions. Indeed there may be overlap, but what can be said for one set may not be true of another even if one is a subset of the other.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12521277

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori