[katzinsky]

If participating doesn't help you achieve your goals why would you participate?

This is a question a lot of people are unwilling to even consider.

EDIT: out of replies for today, here's what I would have written.

I can say as someone who's been employed at multiple large companies, modern employment does not necessarily (if ever?) provide that (something to work towards.) Who wakes up in the morning and thinks "Ah yes, I just live for the CICD/security patch treadmill. I can't wait for scrum!" Serious carrier jobs these days are largely administrative in nature and I've found that I have to have side projects and hobbies to fulfill the need you're talking about. None of these are particularly expensive and during periods of unemployment I've continued them completely uninterrupted (in fact I did much better since work wasn't sucking away my emotional energy.)

For bell-cot:

Employment doesn't have great prospects either. For marriage and family formation very few men are even dating now and almost everyone gets divorced which in most place means losing half of what you've worked for. The women have destroyed themselves so a lot of men are wondering if they're even worth pursuing.

As far as purely economic goals go modern employment doesn't really provide stability the way it used to and shelter is so expensive saving is extremely hard for most people and home ownership is right out until maybe your mid thirties. In many ways most men except the long tail of ambitious/skilled ones may actually be able to expect a more stable life just living with their parents.

[nope1000]

I would say at least for mental health reasons. From personal experience and accounts of others, if you have nothing to work towards and you are not forced to go out and socialise, you will just get depressed after a while.

Now if you are a NEET with a healthy social life and fulfilling hobbies, that may work but I would hazard a guess that this is the exception, not the norm.

[bell-cot]

Because "freeloading with parents" has poor long-term prospects, and "hasn't held a job for years" looks really bad, on a young man's resume?

[toomuchtodo]

Wait for parents to die, inherit the house. Being a worker has poor long term prospects unless you’re lucky.

If your parents will have you and you haven’t made the mistake of kids in the current macro, why be meat for the grinder? Enjoy your one life. To have no obligations is to then be free. Dating scene is suboptimal, just as bad as job interviews I have heard anecdotally.

(43% of first marriages fail, the cost to raise a child is now ~$330k (2023), the cost of real estate continues to increase at a rate faster than wages; the only way to win is to not play)

[bell-cot]

> Wait for parents to die, inherit the house...

If they are wealthy enough to own it free and clear, and you have no siblings, and their residual savings are enough to let you keep living there, long-term, then maybe that'd work.

But you might want to look into just how fast end-of-life expenses can burn through savings. And at the modern costs of owning a house.

Realistically, I'd say that's only a solution for the 1%-to-0.1% crowd.

[toomuchtodo]

~54% Boomers own their home free and clear [1]. To your point, if end of life care is predictable (and you know the expenses are coming), you deed the house to the kids with enough time ("lookback period") that there is no estate to pursue and let the medical system and the government (some combination of Medicare and state Medicaid) eat the cost.

Agree that a lot of folks will have no options [2] [3], ending up homeless or some other terrible transient situation until death, dying with nothing (in my experience). Play to win, no one is coming to save you and the system is rigged against you (rando opinion of casual observer of a dysfunctional system, your opinion may vary).

[1] https://www.npr.org/2024/04/18/1244171720/baby-boomers-large...

[2] https://press.aarp.org/2024-4-24-New-AARP-Survey-1-in-5-Amer...

[3] https://usafacts.org/data-projects/retirement-savings