Another one I would suggest is riding a motorbike. Maybe this would fall under "catastrophically injuring yourself" and include drink driving. But a not-insignificant number of young men ruin their lives by severely injuring themselves doing something with very low return for risk. Riding a motorbike is top of that list, probably even worse than drink driving.
Addiction in any form. I have seen two men I know lose opportunities of a lifetime over booze and video games, two very different behaviors, but both would have been seen as addicts from an outsider perspective.
I'm not sure how you incorporate this but the leading cause of death for young men in Australia is actually suicide. It seems too obvious to mention, but you've got drink driving in there - (traffic accidents are only the second biggest cause) - so "don't kill yourself" is worth pointing out. The statistics are a bit harder to interpret in the US because you have this huge category called "unintentional injury" which seems to include both drug overdose and car crash, but it's safe to say that suicide is a very common way for young American men to destroy their lives.
Porn and gambling I would say would be more like longer term killers like chain smoking or heavy drinking minus the driving. These 5 can strangle opportunity in the teenage cradle. Those two, and related stuff, tend to be more of a slow cancerous death or hitting rock bottom in 30s, 40s, and 50s rather than a real fast train crash.
Pot should be a no-go zone. People think they can handle it, but they can't. Not just because of all the physical and psychological effects, but because it is a sin. Sin kills.
Good list. The natural follow-up: how can young men reboot a life that has gone wrong? Whether from these mistakes, or lesser ones?
One classic route was to join the military. Though I'll say that the best means I've seen firsthand is working for Amazon Warehouse. A friend who screwed up his career and moved back in with his parents and had something like a 4-year gap in his resume managed to earn his way into the upper-middle class through pure hard work and merit, starting at the ground floor at Amazon Warehouse.
I agree they're bad, but I don't think that going broke is that big a problem compared to problems that will haunt you long beyond going broke.
If it's about the addiction itself, a drug addiction is surely far worse than something non-chemical like a gambling addiction.
One theory I have about gambling though (and I'm curious on your opinion, since IIRC you're Gen Z or young Millennial, while I'm an Xennial), is that it doesn't hit younger generations as hard, because we have video games. Which isn't to say video game addiction isn't a problem, but the appeal of sitting in front of a slot machine is greatly reduced when you could instead be sitting in front of a video game. Card games like poker and blackjack are less appealing in a world that has Magic: the Gathering and Hearthstone, available as convenient mobile apps with daily quests.
Maybe online sports betting is somewhat different -- it's impersonal and can happen quickly on a mobile app, so it probably skews younger.
Good list. What do you think about social media being something potentially dangerous? I'm thinking of when young people film themselves saying or doing something scandalous to the powers that be and getting cancelled.
This post goes well with a commencement address that George F. Will gave in the 1990s. I cannot find a full copy online (he re-printed it in his book "With A Happy Eye, But"), but I found this pull quote:
---
It turns out that there are three rules for avoiding long-term poverty – rules which make it unlikely that a person adhering to them will fall into such poverty. The three rules are:
First, graduate from high school. Second, have no child out of wedlock. Third, have no child before you are 20.
This is not a moral assertion, it is an empirical observation: The portion of the population that today is caught in long-term poverty consists overwhelmingly of people who have disregarded one or more of these rules.
---
I would love to see the statistics for how many men who followed all five of your rules ended up in poverty and instability. I bet it is relatively low.
Another one I would suggest is riding a motorbike. Maybe this would fall under "catastrophically injuring yourself" and include drink driving. But a not-insignificant number of young men ruin their lives by severely injuring themselves doing something with very low return for risk. Riding a motorbike is top of that list, probably even worse than drink driving.
Addiction in any form. I have seen two men I know lose opportunities of a lifetime over booze and video games, two very different behaviors, but both would have been seen as addicts from an outsider perspective.
I'm not sure how you incorporate this but the leading cause of death for young men in Australia is actually suicide. It seems too obvious to mention, but you've got drink driving in there - (traffic accidents are only the second biggest cause) - so "don't kill yourself" is worth pointing out. The statistics are a bit harder to interpret in the US because you have this huge category called "unintentional injury" which seems to include both drug overdose and car crash, but it's safe to say that suicide is a very common way for young American men to destroy their lives.
I wonder how much suicide is linked to some of these five already stated.
That’s a great point
Porn and gambling I would say would be more like longer term killers like chain smoking or heavy drinking minus the driving. These 5 can strangle opportunity in the teenage cradle. Those two, and related stuff, tend to be more of a slow cancerous death or hitting rock bottom in 30s, 40s, and 50s rather than a real fast train crash.
Pot should be a no-go zone. People think they can handle it, but they can't. Not just because of all the physical and psychological effects, but because it is a sin. Sin kills.
Good list. The natural follow-up: how can young men reboot a life that has gone wrong? Whether from these mistakes, or lesser ones?
One classic route was to join the military. Though I'll say that the best means I've seen firsthand is working for Amazon Warehouse. A friend who screwed up his career and moved back in with his parents and had something like a 4-year gap in his resume managed to earn his way into the upper-middle class through pure hard work and merit, starting at the ground floor at Amazon Warehouse.
I would add gambling and sports betting to the list. Very sad that the Supreme Court paved the way for the growth of this social scourge.
I agree they're bad, but I don't think that going broke is that big a problem compared to problems that will haunt you long beyond going broke.
If it's about the addiction itself, a drug addiction is surely far worse than something non-chemical like a gambling addiction.
One theory I have about gambling though (and I'm curious on your opinion, since IIRC you're Gen Z or young Millennial, while I'm an Xennial), is that it doesn't hit younger generations as hard, because we have video games. Which isn't to say video game addiction isn't a problem, but the appeal of sitting in front of a slot machine is greatly reduced when you could instead be sitting in front of a video game. Card games like poker and blackjack are less appealing in a world that has Magic: the Gathering and Hearthstone, available as convenient mobile apps with daily quests.
Maybe online sports betting is somewhat different -- it's impersonal and can happen quickly on a mobile app, so it probably skews younger.
Online sports betting skews much younger and companies target many young adult men as per mainstream reports.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/20/business/caesars-sports-betting-universities-colleges.html
Even psychiatrists with all their “elite training” have been ensnared!
https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/how-a-psychiatrist-lost-400000-on-gambling-apps/c91168e8-8add-48bc-8f5f-324fe4680df6
Good list. What do you think about social media being something potentially dangerous? I'm thinking of when young people film themselves saying or doing something scandalous to the powers that be and getting cancelled.
I see it more as a force multiplier than a risk in its own right. But year, phones allow your worst moments to be filmed and held against you forever.
This post goes well with a commencement address that George F. Will gave in the 1990s. I cannot find a full copy online (he re-printed it in his book "With A Happy Eye, But"), but I found this pull quote:
---
It turns out that there are three rules for avoiding long-term poverty – rules which make it unlikely that a person adhering to them will fall into such poverty. The three rules are:
First, graduate from high school. Second, have no child out of wedlock. Third, have no child before you are 20.
This is not a moral assertion, it is an empirical observation: The portion of the population that today is caught in long-term poverty consists overwhelmingly of people who have disregarded one or more of these rules.
---
I would love to see the statistics for how many men who followed all five of your rules ended up in poverty and instability. I bet it is relatively low.