I don't think it's a tragedy. The overly dramatic media and pundits get this all wrong in labeling it such.
Young people are simply responding to incentives to live at home longer. Living expenses keep going up relative to inflation and wages, such as home prices, rent, insurance, etc. Living at home is a good way save money, even for the employed. Family formation is expensive and fraught with risks such as divorce and having to pay child support.
In having to choose between playing video games at home, versus a low-paying job and commuting, video games may be the rational choice depending on one's individual preferences. So someone who values leisure over money, would stay at home. Someone who has a higher preference for money than leisure would go to work even if the pay sucks. I don't see anything wrong with people voluntarily choosing leisure over work, because there will always be some people who will choose work over leisure. Someone who makes a lot of money may be more inclined to work, not because they are less lazy than someone who plays games at home, but that earning $100+/hour and no video games is more enticing of proposition than $11/hour and not playing video games; if you give the $11/hour guy $100/hour, then playing video games at home becomes a less attractive proposition.
I completely reject everything that you are saying. A grown man (or woman) who is dependent on their parents at that level has very serious problems because they are the equivalents of obese domestic dogs in a world full of wolves. Left to their own devices, they would have nothing.
A person who does nothing with their life when they could be doing something is really a narcissist. They take it for granted that others will support them even though they contribute nothing and they don't understand that there could be any reason to work hard other than their own immediate pleasure. Ironically, these people often complain that the reason for their situation is because others aren't doing enough to help them. In their minds, it's not really their fault that they are failures and they go to great lengths to convince other people of these lies.
> A person who does nothing with their life when they could be doing something is really a narcissist
Nah, lots of people just tend to follow the path of least resistance at the moment. They don't assume that others will support them forever, they just aren't thinking about it since it is bothersome. If they were forced to do other things then they will do other things, since the force changed what path has the least resistance.
I agree with you, it might not necessarily be narcissism that causes someone to always do the bare minimum in life. What it really comes down to is lack of discipline.
I know a kid that is a bit at risk of this. The issue i see isn’t lack of discipline as much as it is lack of passion or motivation for anything. If you explore their desire for the future it is a complete blank. Nothing is interesting to them, the future just seems dark and grim, they are resolute about not having children and it feels like, to them, the world is committing slow-motion suicide and there’s no sense in getting emotionally invested in any particular outcome.
I've mostly done the bare minimum in life, at things that I didn't want to do. I agree I'm undisciplined. It took a long time to find my own path, and something to strive for.
I think your labels are part of the problem. They're not narcissists. They're people. And you look down on them just for being people.
If you want to help them, perhaps treat them as equals and listen to them rather than thinking of ways to change them.
I wish I knew their gamer tags so that I could play a few rounds of halo with them, or whatever they like to play. They seem chill.
What it often (of course not always) comes down to is that they have experienced some trauma or unfairness that ruins their trust in the delayed reward systems that the survivor contingent happily takes advantage of. It's a much greater emotional load to maintain discipline when you experience setbacks that are out of your control, even partly. If 100 people break the law and 10 get the book thrown at them and 90 get away free, those 10 made a bad choice but they also were unlucky. The bad luck part will tend to weaken the cognitive biases that help people stay motivated, i.e. the just world fallacy, and move their locus of control outward. Risks become less appealing. Satiating immediate wants and needs over investing in long term ones may seem rational.
How do you address this issue? I think it's cheaper and better for everyone to address unfairness than to try to fix people after they come to feel abused by the world. It would also be better than the status quo of Social Darwinism with a sprinkle of charity and busted social programs.
Dear downvoter, I'd be interested in reading why I deserved it.
> How do you address this issue? I think it's cheaper and better for everyone to address unfairness than to try to fix people after they come to feel abused by the world.
Yes, but somehow forward thinking isn't a common phenomenon in our society.
> Dear downvoter, I'd be interested in reading why I deserved it.
Undoubtedly you didn't "deserve" it. The voting system is just a way for the prevailing cliques to signify who's present. This thread is ripe with the hateful and helpless young men referred to in the article, evident by many of the comments. The worse part is that growing trend in this direction on HN. I'd say HN is currently experiencing max Q and I'm not sure it will make it to the other side without succumbing to the pressure(ie decent people leaving the site for good).
The experience here is worse than before, but still better than elsewhere. I think that means HN is ripe for innovation!
I was wondering that too and think it is this aerospace term[0] as metaphor. Q can describe the sharpness/resonance of a signal filter, too, which was my first thought, but makes less sense, although they seem like related terms[1].
>A person who does nothing with their life when they could be doing something is really a narcissist.
I spent a mere year after college living with my parents, a very long and sad year, wondering if this was going to be the rest of my life. My next real job came somewhat out of sheer luck and I'm thankful for it because I could totally see myself having given up, still back there to this day, still having no idea how to take my first step in a direction that actually motivated me beyond the baseline survival mode of wage-slavery. Not for one second during that time did I want to live like that, but it could have very well been the case anyway. Narcissism is far from the truth
Made a throwaway for obvious reasons. I'm in the middle of that year right now. I was doing well - transferred from community college to a top university studying engineering. Perfect grades, several prestigious summer internships. Then I had a depressive episode. Grades went down the toilet, had to leave school. Spent a year getting my life back together, but the depression never really went away. I went back to school part time and was slowly finishing my degree, though never achieving at the same level as before. Things were kind of working. Then covid happened and the lockdown was basically a perfect storm that destroyed all of the fragile systems I had created to get by. Got kicked out of school this time. Now I'm in my late 20's, with no degree and no relevant job experience, sitting in my old bedroom and trying to figure out what the hell to do with my life. From where I am now it really does feel like this is going to be the rest of my life. I can't speak for anyone else, but playing video games or watching youtube all day is the absolute last thing I want, but it feels like just about the only thing I can do right now, and at least it's a distraction from all of the opportunities that are now out of reach.
The only advice I can provide: build things. It does not matter what: social, digital, or physical. Affect the world that surrounds you, don't be its effect. Good luck. You've got it in you. It's hard, but you'll pull though.
Check yourself medically; you might have hEDS, or some other hormonal problem. It’s much more prevalent than people think. Check T3 thyroid for sub clinical, check your Testosterone (female and males). Check for post exertion fatigue by exercising to exhaustion and trying to repeat in a few days. You could do a FMa test. The official diagnosis for hEDS is crap, so go through the comobidities and see if there are other weird things about yourself that it could explain. I spent years thinking I was lazy before finally figuring it out.
I don't know you at all so I don't know how much this can mean, but I just want to say that your situation sounds extremely tragic to me and I feel for you, and your repeated attempts to better yourself and your situation give me hope that you can pull yourself out of this
You're speaking in past tense about baggage you carry. No one is keeping score but yourself. The only way your life will improve is tackling your issues instead of making excuses for them. I say this with kindness, you need to get over it. If playing video games or watching YouTube all day is really the "absolute last thing" you want then act like it. You make your own opportunities, outside of that it's simply luck.
Consider enlisting in the Air Force: lots of opportunities for interesting technical education, well-paid global travel, far less physical risk than the other military branches, just enough discipline and structure to give you some direction.
I am talking about people who are orders of magnitude less motivated than you and do nothing to improve their situation. These people probably never went to college or dropped out just to stay home and play video games. In your case, working a low paying job as a college graduate is actually highly virtuous. Some college grads would rather do nothing because they think they are hot shit.
>working a low paying job as a college graduate is actually highly virtuous.
I disagree. In principle I don't think anyone should work a low paying job, and I think opting out if you can afford it is the right thing to do.
Why should we have a race to the bottom on labor? I'd rather we have more blogs and interesting reading on the internet than cheap Starbucks thanks to full employment and high labor-force participation.
Work for the sake of being busy is silly, I believe industriousness like you profess is unsustainable for our planet, at least in our current social order.
I mean, how much of motivation comes from one's environment/upbringing... I have a strong sense that the vast majority of them thought they just didnt have opportunities to begin with, leading later to the deduction that "the game is rigged" and were destined to wage-slavery anyway. Thus no reason to motivate themselves to contribute
"they don't understand that there could be any reason to work hard"
The cultural pedestal of "working hard" is tragically misplaced. Market promotes those that work smart or gable at the right opportunity, corporate politics promotes the well connected, people that support their family or community the most deserve respect, but the poor folks stocking amazon warehouses 12 hours a day get screwed.
"In their minds, it's not really their fault that they are failures and they go to great lengths to convince other people of these lies."
sometimes it is really not their fault, but one day their parents will not be able to provide for them, and that's when the real tragedy will begin.
Not everyone can do "something." A lot of jobs aren't meaningful or even necessary, and given the increased tendency to require 4 year degrees on top of internships, connections, and more for many jobs makes it harder to obtain them.
Also, a lot of jobs that would employee these men are disappearing. Retail in particular is the employer of last resort, but physical shops are slowly dwindling in numbers. People are a lot more aware of how bad the military is to be in, too; there is much less glamour around it culturally.
Not leading a meaningful life inevitably leads to depression.
That's not to say that a very small few people may somehow find meaning exclusively playing video games. However most people will eventually suffer from lack of self-esteam, low status and shame.
Exactly what is a meaningful life anymore, especially in America?
If you are looking for self-esteem through your job--for most of us those days are gone.
(I know way to many former Programers who aged out of the industry way to early, and gave up. Way to many are homeless. My point is don't expect too much psychological satisfaction from a job that barely covers the rent, has no real pension, and lousy medical. My father lived for work. He loved being an electrician. He didn't develop friendships, or hobbies. He died of liver cancer a few months into retirement. One of our last conversations was when he was dying. He got a letter from the union stating they will now cover his medical expenses 100%.)
These are my principles. I want to be honest and fair to others. I don't care what people say about me at my funeral. Perfectly ok with an anonymous death.
1. Do you mean a meaningful life from the gamers perspective or from the perspective of outsiders?
2. If the issue is lack of self-esteem etc. Wouldn't it be better to focus on mental health instead of employment? Once again, I was interested in talking about gamers who are happy with their situation.
Meaningful to one's self and principles. In the sense that Viktor Frankl wrote about in "Man's Search for Meaning." Wherein he describes the survivors of the nazi concentration camps were the prisoners who had something personally meaningful to live for. People thrive if they have meaning in their lives.
If you can derive meaning from your career, that's great. Otherwise, family or contributing to society or whatever you think makes a difference in the world and is worth working toward.
Like everything, gaming is great in moderation, but the gamer who does nothing with their life but game is probably going to have some regrets on their deathbed.
If the gamer is happy spending his time with his parents and games, it might well be that his principles are aligned around this social connection and activity. It is difficult for me to judge from a distance. Moreover, he might not have any particular principle for his life. I know plenty of folks like that.
You have also used another word - meaning. Is that a synonym for principle?
I am sure the gamer interacts with his parents. I couldn't find anything in the medical literature about excessive gaming either. It is quite possible that he may have regrets on his deathbed like most people. However optimizing your life for the thoughts you will have in your deathbed might not be a great tradeoff if it means doing work that makes you miserable for most of your life.
More succinctly, why work when we have nothing to work for?
Anecdotally, I just graduated from university and am gainfully employed. I'm really happy to be employed, yet I quickly realized that I have no idea what I want to do with all this money. I'm never going to be able to buy a house. I'm not particularly enthusiastic about having kids, and don't think I can afford children in the first place. I have no major life milestones to look forward to other than retirement. So why am I working? What do I do with all this money, other than dumping it in investments and generally hoarding the wealth? I've yet to find an answer.
Who knows, maybe I'll end up retiring before my 40th birthday.
>Why do you say that you're never going to be able to buy a house, but maybe will end up retiring before you're 40?
It's not necessarily about being able to afford a house, but rather about whether home ownership is the best option financially when compared to other options. 20 years ago, homes were so cheap that I'd be willing to buy a home just for the sake of being a homeowner and enjoying the security that entailed. However, nowadays with sky high housing prices, home ownership would need to provide concrete financial benefits when compared to other investments.
Admittedly I'd likely be more motivated to look into buying a house if I wanted children.
>Sounds like, in lieu of anything else, you should try and buy a rental property or two. Start slow, eventually FIRE, that whole thing.
Yes this is the path I am most likely to go down. Buying some rental properties and retiring relatively young is an attractive option.
In a market with rapidly escalating home prices, assuming you're interested in living in the same area for a long time (>5 years probably, depends) buying a house can be a good bit of a hedge against real estate inflation. Home prices going up (usually) drive up apartment prices. My mortgage won't change, maintenance costs won't change, property taxes might. But if my property taxes go up, you can bet rent prices are going to go up by at least that much, probably more. How many apartment complexes rent 5 year leases?
In my country people living with the minimum wage will never be able to go "FIRE" or even retire. They earn about 10 usd a day or about 260 a month have to commute for about 2 hours each way and have one day off each two weeks.
Even I a young tech worker know I will never get a pension and I will never own a "proper house" the closest I will get to that will be more like a caged house in Taiwan.
I had a long conversation with my brother, who never wanted to retire ever, and his reason was basically "what would I even do with all the time I have". My inability to answer that haunts me every day. I still don't know.
I don't think both of those combined would fill my time from when I'm 40 until I die. I'd have to find something that really occupies me (like maybe I start a big open source project or something) but at that point I'm just finding work that I don't get paid for.
You are asking the great question of what the purpose of life is. Wealth? Knowledge? Family and friends? If you were to ask Goethe it is the struggle, the striving and toiling that gives life meaning. Essentially it is the journey not the destination because ultimately we all end up in the same place. Enjoy the moments of life.
As for what to do with the money. Invest it, retire early if you want and if nothing else give yourself the freedom to make work whatever you want it to be.
You can retire before 40 but cant afford a house? That doesn't add up.
Also do you realize that billions of people on this planet have a far worse life than you? You have the luxury of having problems like these. However purpose and meaning don't just appear out of nowhere, you have to actively go find them.
Heh, I have enough income to retire in my 30s, but not enough to buy a house in the neighborhood I rent in where home prices have gone up 500% in the last 10 years.
>I'm never going to be able to buy a house. I'm not particularly enthusiastic about having kids, and don't think I can afford children in the first place
>Who knows, maybe I'll end up retiring before my 40th birthday.
Entirely the rent, and the rent seeking, and the complete lack of housing, sheer greed that drives all the problems.
Hidden deeply on another page someone references a site with numbers from 50 years ago, 1971. (#1) I don't really care what the agenda of that site happens to be; but the numbers. Compare the numbers to today:
Everyone is FAR worse off today and in my generation.
US nationally (today 2021) about 85K is equivalent to the cited 25K 1971 numbers. :: ~10X cost of living (edited, I unconsciously compared to the wrong number.)
Seattle is far more distorted, with housing beyond out of control (I don't know what kind of house was being looked at for the 1971 numbers, but it really doesn't matter, there's almost nothing even remotely near the national price within the region).
Seattle's rent is completely out of control; beyond any rational measure. No wonder neither I nor my generation can make any savings; it's all being consumed by rent seeking land owners.
Income 10600 %Income71
House 25200 237.736
Car 3600 33.962
RentYear 1800 16.981
UniYear 2600 24.528
Gas5000mi 100 0.943
Mail500invite 40 0.377
-
USA 2021 Equiv71
House 269000 113151
Car 30500 89806
RentYear 14400 84800
UniYear 26100 106408
Gas5000mi 483.33 51233
Mail500invite 290 76850
-
Seattle 2021 Equiv71
House 750000 315476
Car 30500 89806
RentYear 36000 212000
UniYear 31200 127200
Gas5000mi 533.33 56533
Mail500invite 290 76850
Millions of jobs were lost due to Covid, many permanently. This was on top of jobs lost in 2008-2010. Each wave permanently removes a bunch of people from the workforce. Pre-2008 it was easier for the unemployed to rebound and find work even without advanced degrees or advanced skills. Not anymore. So there are a lot of people not contributing, either on disability , living with friends or parents, or on some form of welfare. Yet, in validation of MMT, as evidenced by low inflation, low treasury bonds yields, and the strong dollar, supporting these people is not as economically prohibitive as originally believed. The US economy has surpassed the rest of the world since Covid and since 2008 in spite of a lot of people not contributing. A single Bezos or Musk in terms of econ productivity is equal to millions of low-contributing people. In an ideal world, maybe everyone would contribute, but that is not the world we live in.
We ran a huge deficit this year supporting the economy during covid. We are also seeing a spike in short term inflation and a weaker dollar. Treasury bond yields remain low but there is increasing speculation that decades of low rates could soon reverse.
Also are you attributing all value generated by Bezos's or Musk's companies to only them? What about all of the great people they employ?
Short term inflation is rising, but this has more to due with supply and outputs being constrained due to Covid and inflation rising from an abnormally low base. Many pundits and experts underestimated how quickly things would come back, even with the help of stimulus. I think having rising inflation and a booming economy is preferable to a weak economy and low inflation.
They won't be entering the labor force at 40+. Without some kind of disability benefit that keeps them housed and fed, they'll end up living out of a car or a tent, playing games on a phone they charge by running the engine on the camp Winnebago. Bloomberg will run articles about how cars, tents and gasoline are holding them back from participating in the economy.
Or they'll be fine, marry loving partners, get into doing something lax like flipping cars or real estate, spend more than they probably should on entertainment, have a kid or two, pay off their $100k home by retirement age, and live like most of the bottom 40% of the US.
Not everywhere has money. I'm from a place where mortgages (with PMI) plus property tax are under $600/mo, families mostly own one vehicle (a van or truck), and people outside of regular blue collar either work six months out of the year trucking, at one of two local corporate offices, or hold multiple jobs part time (30-32 hours per so they don't ever get benefits).
That's how a lot of America lives, and that's who Medicare4All, free higher ed, and federal funding for K12 helps the most, which would do a lot to build and reinforce our lower middle class.
it doesn't work this way. My experiences/watching is that the men at 40 live with their parents or relatives, take care of them some, and stay single for the rest of their lives in a pretty low standard of living. Essentially those men are the new spinsters, and definitely do not have decent jobs or kids.
But who raises the next generation under that scenario? Immigrants, of course, but what does that say about what American society has become?
This is not a “replacement” screed, by the way, but quite the opposite. If your culture requires constant immigration to survive, that means it’s unsustainable in the steady state. Like, it would be bad if everyone adopted your culture. Your culture is the panda of cultures.
except for the part of an economic system that requires unending growth
This is such a tired phrase. Like if we had socialism or communism or some other -ism it wouldn't matter.
But that's just not true. The issue is math and the fact that prime age working people (25-55ish) are the ones that, for the most part, make stuff. If you have a shrinking population then the % of the population that makes stuff gets a lot smaller so everyone has to be poorer. No "economic system" can change that.
If you have a shrinking population then the % of the population that makes stuff gets a lot smaller so everyone has to be poorer. No "economic system" can change that.
sure, but if people are too exhausted to make the time to have a family (a.k.a nookie) then its maybe worth examining [0] if "constant growth" is societally sustainable
I don't think we even need to settle for reduction. The US economy as measured by GDP and other metrics has surpassed countries with higher pop growth rates, especially since Covid. It does not matter if the % who makes stuff shrinks if productivity goes up.
Productivity grown in the service sector (2/3 of the economy) has been just 0.9% annually since 1947: https://aneconomicsense.org/tag/productivity/. It’s pretty much stopped growing over the last couple of decades.
You would still need a fair system that distributes a base amount of resources fairly. If we had that system the current form of capitalism could last much longer (another 80 years).
What about the scifi trope of robots making things? After all the productivity of a single human has been skyrocketing for more than a century now. I do not which -ism that is. Somewhere between socialism and startrekism I guess.
Wait. I’m not sure I understand what that chart is supposed to show. Are you suggesting because the GDP is only linearly growing productivity is not increasing?
No, look at the “services and construction” line. That measures output per worker in that sector (2/3 of the economy) since 1947. That’s a measure of productivity per worker. It’s grown at only 0.9% over that time. A big chunk of even that tepid growth is in a handful of areas like finance. In vast swaths of the economy, workers aren’t any more productive today than in 1947. Everything from building houses to caring for kids and old people to serving diners at restaurants, etc. We can make iPhones with fewer workers than ever but the post-scarcity economy is very far away.
I don’t have much of an opinion on the scarcity economy but I think you could read that chart differently. The industries that have listed the longest, agriculture, manufacturing etc have seen explosive productivity growth. So you might predict services are next.
Actually it's estimated gradually redistributing wealth from billionaires and Silicon Valley companies via taxes and stimulus checks to the American people could afford us up to 4 to 5 years of prosperity. So clearly you're wrong, we can change living conditions of mostly everyone through a better economic system.
Historically, only a % of the population ever reproduced. About the same as do today.
The difference is that the couples that do have children, have much fewer children. 2, instead of 4.
We need to look at the costs faced by couples with a lot of children. For example, you can accommodate 2 children in a standard 3 bedroom house, but 4 or 5 children are going to need a much larger and more expensive dwelling. Same thing with cars.
The USA seems to be doing alright with this, where housing is relatively affordable, and child tax credits and the ability to combine you income with your spouse. (The situation is much more dire in Central/Eastern Europe)
One way to improve this is to increase land value taxes, but offer a credit for each child of the owners under 18 living there. This would give families a formal tax advantage against baby boomers and investors.
> We need to look at the costs faced by couples with a lot of children. For example, you can accommodate 2 children in a standard 3 bedroom house, but 4 or 5 children are going to need a much larger and more expensive dwelling. Same thing with cars.
Per modern standards. A whole bedroom per child is still today only an amenity that relatively richer people have, especially in desirable areas.
I also wonder how many women chose to have 4 kids. It might have just been an unfortunate byproduct of sex, but now it’s completely controllable. And after seeing what my wife went through in 2 completely normal pregnancies with no complications, you would have to offer me some serious cash if I was a woman to go through that.
> I also wonder how many women chose to have 4 kids.
I guess it depends how far back you go. Prior to child labor laws, having more children resulted in more family income. They could work on the farm or in factories, etc. In those times, childhood mortality was also high. So you may have had 8 kids but not that many would make it to adulthood.
Those women had significantly less ability to not have one more kid. First , there was no child control, only way to not have sex at all. Second, husband was head of familly with huge power and there was no way to escale if he decided the celibacy is not a way to go.
"Historically, only a % of the population ever reproduced. About the same as do today"
What is "historically"? Is that in a society of cavemen where most men died before reaching maturity? Is that a polygamous tribal society?
Is it ancient Rome where peasants had families and had loads of kids to help with farm work? Are we talking post-renaissance, where vast majority of people had families and contraception was non existent, so basically everyone had kids?
When we lived in the US, we only had a single child and said No More. That single child nearly bankrupted us in medical bills. You’d have to be irrational to have a child in the US, be very rich, very poor, or have great health insurance.
Since moving to the EU, when we explain to people how much our child costs, their jaw drops. If the US wants more children, they really need to solve the medical costs problem.
Those old people should have invested in kids. Or be content with their fate.
I hope I can muster up the will to take myself out before someone else has to take care of me. Or maybe there will not even be anyone to take care of me, so it will be a moot point.
There is also a question of who exactly is doing this. I am willfully ignorant of conditions in the lowest 20% of society by wealth and status.
It isn't self-evident that life in the real world at the bottom of society is better than a videogame. Imaginary worlds are a lot more fun than reality. Throw in a minimum wage freezing out very low skill jobs, parental willingness to support, no particular prospect of a girlfriend and maybe a bit of access to some welfare programs. Then maybe the real world just doesn't offer very much.
Those very low-skill jobs that the minimum wage eliminated may not be worth the commute. For that matter, the company may add a bastardized version of those jobs to “other duties as assigned” to a higher-payed employee with a different primary role.
The thing is, to put oneself in a position where they're able to get $100/hr takes a lot of early sacrifice. So it's a false equivalence to say they'd be happy to work for 100/hr rather than 11 - but because 100 isn't offered straight away, purely leisure becomes a reasonable choice. Regardless of how the media portrays it, I'd say it is a rather tragic situation for an able person to live in such a way, only through the support of others.
I think the tragedy is that they would, deep in their hearts, rather not be playing games all day, ie they themselves would like to do something different but they can't find the bridge between what the world offers them and what they can offer the world.
If playing games all day was really their desire then yeah I'd agree with you.
Young people are simply responding to incentives to live at home longer. Living expenses keep going up relative to inflation and wages, such as home prices, rent, insurance, etc. Living at home is a good way save money, even for the employed. Family formation is expensive and fraught with risks such as divorce and having to pay child support.
In having to choose between playing video games at home, versus a low-paying job and commuting, video games may be the rational choice depending on one's individual preferences. So someone who values leisure over money, would stay at home. Someone who has a higher preference for money than leisure would go to work even if the pay sucks. I don't see anything wrong with people voluntarily choosing leisure over work, because there will always be some people who will choose work over leisure. Someone who makes a lot of money may be more inclined to work, not because they are less lazy than someone who plays games at home, but that earning $100+/hour and no video games is more enticing of proposition than $11/hour and not playing video games; if you give the $11/hour guy $100/hour, then playing video games at home becomes a less attractive proposition.