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Because it's highly relevant, I'm going to paraphrase a comment I made last week:
I think a big part of the problem is that middle-aged men are at the apex of their expectations to be successful in the eyes of society, and we are living through a period of time where success is very hard to define, much less attain.
There is a name for this in sociology: anomie [1]. Émile Durkheim coined it in his book Suicide, written not too long after the Industrial Revolution.
In times of great change, the set of norms and rules that we take for granted as an organizing principle of our lives get uprooted. It's as if all of the pieces and tokens and rules of the board game we played our whole lives are swept off the table to make room for a new game, but the new game has not been set up yet. In that interim, we all feel a sense of unease. It is our turn to move, but we don't know the rules of the game or what moves to make. We feel intense pressure to play the game well, but don't know how.
In the past, these transitions have ended and society has generally returned to some sense of stability. A new board game gets set up, new pieces doled out, we learn to play the new game. I hope we get to that point with AI soon, but the revolutions seem to keep coming faster and faster.
I think for a lot of men, it feels like just at the time when we should be able to rest on our laurels a bit after having worked so hard to play the game society told us to, the rules have been ripped out from under us and any sense of security going forward is lost. We feel too old to learn the new rules of the game in time to play well, but not old enough to be able to abstain from playing.
It's a psychologically very difficult time.
Well said! 5 years ago I could have a pretty solid picture of what my career would look like through retirement.
Today, unclear what that would look like as well as unclear if the career will even exist that long.
One sunny spot I have is that life is very long. I think I have 1.5 careers left in me, and a full pivot is alright. I've been talking with older folks, and loads of people have historically done giant pivots at midlife.
I disagree with a lot of these social analysis texts because I think they misunderstand a fundamental premise. There is no pressure from society today, on the contrary. You had that when we were living in villages where everyone knew each other and it is what city dwellers escaped from.
But this never had been reevaluated. Modern societies are detached, nobody really cares what you do, you don't know your neighbours, you have no "third place" or common place any more.
So norms and rules are far less pronounced than in any other time in human history, far less so.
If you go out without pants in a big city, very few people would care. In better situated parts, you can expect that the police will probably pick you up. In less fortunate environments, you would just be pantless.
This is the opposite of expectations and pressures. I think many just aren't really part of a society or environment any more.
For some that is a great loss while others strive in this state as well. For many having some kind of responsibility is a very important part of their lives, but modern societies offer little here. We optimise for as little attachment as possible to stay flexible and dynamic. That of course can be a pressure as well, but not in the sense it is often suggested.
But summarised I think the problem is fundamentally misunderstood: Society doesn't put pressure on anyone, society simply stopped caring about you. I think this is what most societal analysts get completely wrong.
Is that not the epitome of the classic mid life crisis?
You hit a point in your life, reflect back on where you'd thought you'd be when you were in your early 20s, and think.. shit.. what I do all of this for?
This isn't even a flippant comment (especially given the subject matter); being at this age and thinking "I imagined it would all be easy by now" does hit home.
> expectations to be successful
+1. Also maybe it's an age where responsibilities start to peak. More senior positions in the workplace, having children, marriage, etc.
I've had a few stressful periods lately where it felt or feels like I can't load any more on to my plate and I don't even have that many responsibilities - no kids either, just an accumulation of small and background things needing dealt with. I think I do understand people who do commit suicide to an extent - if you add the above normal stresses of life to some highly stressful life events like a breakup or divorce and throw kids etc into the mix - and hey why not a pile of work related stress too - I can absolutely see how people get pushed to the edge.
Modern society has not been arranged in a way that sets people up for success. Staring at device screens for more hours year on year likely doesn't help.
I'm sure some sociologists have written this already, but it seems to me that the people who commit suicide aren't those who are miserable and have few options. It's those who have lots and lots of options, but all options lead to unacceptably bad outcomes.
Microcredit in the third world is somewhat notorious for causing a rise in suicide rates. That fits the pattern: there's a huge number of things you can do to get money to pay back the loan, but if it gets out of hand, none of them get you remotely enough money to keep from sinking deeper into debt. Access to capital gives you many options - but it also makes it your fault when you didn't find the option which would lead you out of miserable poverty (which may not even exist!)
What any psychologist will probably tell you (at least, what all of them told me) is that clinical depression makes you bad at seeing options. Could it be that's in some sense a defense mechanism, trying to stop you from putting the really bad options on the table?
On the mark.
I have however run out of fucks and am ignorantly coasting and making optimal survival decisions only. Fuck the business. Fuck the career. Highly recommended.
We feel too old to learn the new rules of the game in time to play well, but not old enough to be able to abstain from playing.
Well said.
Well said.
Part of working through history from (only) 100 years ago is an impression of how quickly societies were changing then. This isn't the first time we've had the table cleared, and it hopefully won't be the last.
Which isn't to downplay the upheaval that people are in - it is definitely traumatic. But we've been through disruption before. Hopefully we'll make fewer costly mistakes this time...
That is a very interested lens to view this issue through, I hadn't considered that! I'm not quite that age, though I think my age can be discerned from my post history lol, but even outside of being generally impacted by this, the biggest impact I've felt has been how others around me are reacting. Half a dozen INCREDIBLE engineers that I used to work with left explicitly because they don't like how AI is changing the industry.
I don't know, it feels to me, in my limited scope of experience and view, that things are getting a lot worse, very quickly, and it frightens the hell out of me.
maybe some just don't want to live that long. does everyone need to live as long as possible? you live your youth, and maybe that is enough for some.
if you start to hurt every day, get diagnosed with age-related disease, your cognition starts to deteriorate, etc, you might just decide "hey, i lived enough. i don't want to go through years of feeling like this."
There are numerous NDE reports that say people who commit suicide go through extreme agony after they die. It’s never an option. Tell this to anyone who thinks about this mistake and it may help him. Although he should do his own part of searching and listening to such stories to understand how big of a mistake this is.
Personally I think it has to do it's harder than ever to meet and find a partner.
> A new board game gets set up, new pieces doled out, we learn to play the new game
Reminds me of this idea about sport / competition from the parenting book, The Gardener and the Carpenter by Alison Gopnik. She says that children must be encouraged to explore, not exploit ("play games"), without any end goal in mind. This lets them figure out the world around them and how they can affect it.
As "exploitation" (competition) is a means to use specific knowledge (performance) to achieve goals (progress), it will tend to have winners & losers. "Exploration", otoh, is choosing among umpteen pathways to growth and learning. Of course, middle-aged folks can seldom afford to not be playing games, but perhaps in times of change, they need to be exploring like children again.
Also see this post on Ask HN: Has anyone here turned around their life in their 40s? about Pyscho-Cybernetics & achieving goals: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34053801
This makes a lot of sense to me. I used to have plans for the future, I had the next couple of years mapped out. Then I tried AI and my plans simply dissolved. I have no idea what's going to happen now.
Feels like all the effort I put into coming this far was invalidated overnight. The writing is on the wall, and now I have about five years to get rich at any cost until it's all over. Now I'm firing from the hip in all directions, trying to hit something, anything.
I used to enjoy programming as a hobby, writing articles. It's all so meaningless now. What's the point?
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> we are living through a period of time where success is very hard to define, much less attain.
Do you think this has changed from say 10 or 20 years ago? To me, I don't get the sense that there has been shift in the social definition of success. Maybe I'm missing something?
No. All that would apply to women too. Men are abused in the West, oh for a few decades now. Women are taking all the college slots, taking most of the new job openings, having more sex and offspring, have more friends, are favored by the legal system, celebrated in the media rather than mocked and derided. Women have a lot of pent up rage after hundreds of years of their own abuse, now that the tables have turned, they are holding the whip hand now as it were…. It’s not anomie.
true but the pieces we value are also being pried from our hands.
I also don't think it compares to the industrial revolution, these are primarily sociological conditions - these suicidality figures predate the current AI implications.
we are also flooded with the highly curated exceptionalism of others.
no rules/syllabus is an opportunity to be creative. No one has it figured out. Everyone is winging it. If you lock in, you will be the expert!
Never kill yourself, life is awesome after overcoming challenges
I defined success for myself quite a few years ago: I want to leave the world better than I found it. No high aspirations, no figure. Just better than it was.
Some of that is political advocacy. Some of that is open source code that should exist. Some of that is helping a neighbor. I don't need to hit a certain bar, I just need to know that in a given interaction or situation, I am trying to make things... at least a little better.
That also scales well to differing life decisions. The video game I'm playing, can I get people to play a little nicer with each other and have more fun? Workplaces are full of dumb stuff, success is making it at least a little better. Turns out I have kids now. Wasn't the plan, but now my obligation is to make sure my involvement in their lives is positive. Not a specific bar I have to achieve, but you know, someday I hope someone appreciates how I chose to live my life.
I am not sure if the success per se is the issue, but today things are definitely harder for many people compared to, say, 50 years ago for people of the same age. The available options for you, at age 55, are less with regards to success in general. And then it depends a lot on one's life too; for instance, are they single or not, do they have kids or not, and so forth.
> It's a psychologically very difficult time.
That's true, though it depends on how one handles that. But I think it is also clear that there are fewer options available when you are somewhat old already. People at age, say 20 to 25, may not feel a problem when they are gamers. At age 55, it is much harder to reason as to why you may wish to invest many hours per day into games; it just is not that productive, for most people (excluding e. g. playing to have fun, but that still does not answer the question of producitivity; I exclude professional gamers here, as they can often make a living just from donations, twitch etc.. but most people are not like that. Some of these gamers soon hit the age range 50+ by the way, I do watch a few of them every now and then.)
Sorry but it has very little to do with expectations. As a middle aged man you have very little opportunity to start a new career (regardless if there is even any remaining soon). In an absolutely objective way, physically and socially.
Yup, I tell my partner all the time. I just want the new era to be here already. I hate this waiting. I'm very annoyingly optimistic and think we're headed for post-scarcity.
Eh, I don't think today is really all that different from the last 100 years. We as software engineers may feel different as it's (maybe) our turn in the barrel.
I'm 40, and I am not suicidal, but I've definitely felt those thoughts more than ever in my life in the past two years. I wake up two or three times every night from anxiety dreams. I began drinking too much, but luckily I was able to get out of that habit. Between (some of) the effects of AI on my career and hobbies, and the effects of politics on my country and even my own town, and many more problems, I can count more things I feel love and passion for that have been demeaned or destroyed in the past decade than such things that persist.
And this isn't even to mention money, and what my future is looking like, despite having every possible intrinsic and external advantage in The Greatest Country on Earth.
I've had one same-aged friend kill themselves, and I try to be attentive to the signals being put out by everybody in my circle.
> I began drinking too much, but luckily I was able to get out of that habit.
Alcohol is incredibly dangerous after 40, particularly if you've got a history as a heavy drinker. I've had to cut back to virtually nothing as it's guaranteed to trigger anxiety and depressive episodes.
Almost all the premature deaths in my circle, including suicides, have been alcohol-linked.
Obviously, YMMV, everyone's different, but if anyone reading this thread is over 40, struggling, and still drinking regularly, taking a break can really help.
I’ve lost a lot of my spark in the past 6 years as well. So much has happened that it’s impossible to pinpoint one root cause, it’s all contributing.
Don’t know if you’re soliciting advice, but there are a few things that keep me feeling the way I did before: physical exercise, and live music. Unfortunately I find less time as the week goes by to dedicate to those things, but I at least know they’re there.
Therapeutic writing that out loud, in a way.
I'm 41. My youngest brother blew his brains out in July. My other brother has cut himself twice. I quit my job as an EMT because I'm in no mood to transport SI patients. I needed a job on short notice to keep making my mortgage payments, so now I'm breaking my body 50-60 hrs/wk pouring concrete with the Amish. And it doesn't even cover the bills.
I can't afford health insurance, let alone health care. 0 sick days, 0 vacation time, $0 leisure spending. Credit card debt ticks up each month. Retirement savings is a pipe dream. How could I conscionably attempt a family under these conditions? I'd never have time to be a part of it and would be plagued by the guilt of not being able to provide.
But hey, I'm told to feel lucky I managed to lock in a 30-year mortgage at 5.99%: If I'm diligent paying on it until I've got a foot in the grave, selling the house might pay for end-of-life care!
AI hasn't made a dent in my enjoyment of my hobbies and tech (the opposite, now I have more toys to play with than ever), but politics? Oh man, politics becoming the new religion has absolutely ruined pretty much everything for me.
I don't believe in politics. For me left and right are all *the same*. Just a bunch of megalomaniacs wanting to hog power for themselves. This extremely hot take has made people call me more names and costed me more relationships than if I went out and started screaming slurs in a crowded street. Because I am a "fence sitter" or whatever.
And I just can't handle it anymore, I just went full recluse. I don't go into social media anymore, I don't talk to anyone at a personal level anymore. Outside of some github issues and some comments here, I don't touch socials anymore. I am just overwhelmed by the level of vitriol and hate the new internet is based on.
How were able to get out of the drinking habit? I have been drinking heavily on the days I work from home. Drinking really calms me down. I then watch Netflix just so I don’t think.
Our brains are constantly bombarded with ever growing information and noise. With mindfulness, deliberate separation from most of the daily noise we can all zero in our own purposes in life. This hard, doesn’t happen overnight but with little steps and a lot of patience we will find that eventual purpose. And you find it hang on to it. I found reading the New Testament brings me instant peace when my brain is in turmoil.
Hang in there strong with spiritual closeness, removing noise and avoiding those negative thoughts.
I turn 39 this year and am just finding more and more ways to become irrelevant. I can’t be the only one so these stats make sense to me. Fortunately, Australia has a good start on what mental health care should look like and its subsidised (or at least a few sessions are).
I was made redundant in August and despite being a 20 year career vet who has done many different langs, I still can’t find a new job.
My skills as a developer are no longer required because the all knowing robot can (apparently) do what I need to do. I’ve heard multiple companies now using it to ship stuff all the way into production without any human intervention at all. This feels to me like driving the car without holding onto the wheel.
The side hustle I had of writing books to teach people development is over — they can just ask the robot instead. I was writing a new book about how developers can train up others, but have put that on hold (due to losing my job which was that thing, and because of AI)
I honestly don’t know what I’m supposed to do here to provide for my family.
I think most white-collar people have similar feelings. I certainly am, and many dev-friends and coworkers have confided such to me.
My software skills are now irrelevant. I've accepted that the omniscience robot is a better engineer than me. No clue what I'm going to do next, but I have to figure it out fast once my job disappears.
I wanted a family, but I'm relieved that I don't have one now. I can't imagine the stress and pressure of that with how weird everything is now. I'm nearing the end of the timeline for that anyway, being in my late 30s. Probably a blessing in disguise.
I have a some good hobbies that keeps me on my toes (physically, mentally) and a full social and family life fortunately. That's what fills my cup. I'm not stoked about tech anymore anyway.
I’ve been a software developer for 20 years this year.
I quit my job in 2024 and moved country to be with someone I fell in love with.
Last time I’d interviewed it was 2020 - yeah, I had my pick of roles. This time after 5 applications a day every day for two months plus Leetcode and System Design practice round the clock I landed a dozen interviews and 2x offers.
I never thought I’d have to send 300+ job applications to get a job but my wife whilst sympathetic opened her job applications folder which had some 100+ applications in her field (manager in tourism sector) before she received a job offer.
It’s tough, software devs have never faced that level of friction before but it’s present in other industries.
A quote from Churchill which I carry with me is ‘if you’re going through hell, keep going’.
I've been through a 6 month long unemployment. Got let go from a company (along with the majority of the dev team) which picked up AI like a shiny object thinking it could do everything.
Then I got hired to a company which have been pushing AI 100% for like a year, not at the expense of headcount, but responsibly as the N+1th productivity increasing tool, like what it is.
It's a really nice environment where keeping and cultivating great talent is not just one of the primary marketing slogans on the hiring page, but it actually feels like it while on the job.
My talent is nowhere near yours, so don't lose hope, keep applying.
I read your 'Leaving Tech' blog and it made me sad because it reflects a lot of what I'm feeling. Luckily I'm still employed, though it feels fairly tenuous at the moment
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"This feels to me like driving the car without holding onto the wheel."
And this is why the whole thing will implode eventually. But there will be a period of pain until then.
While I applaud Australia's initiatives, I am becoming more and more convinced that a lot of people are already in (or heading towards) situations that the mental healthcare field can do very little, if anything, to improve.
Sounds like your semi-rural location isn't helping. FWIW I have recruiters in Sydney in my network who are hitting me up on a semi-weekly basis because they are dry. I think the situation macro-economically is just really bad. Based on the stock market situation this week, I'd guess it's going to get a whole lot worse. First, be thankful you have a clean, safe place to live with a healthy family and just do stuff. So many people don't have those boxes checked and would kill for your position. Maybe try another money generating exhausting activity like woodwork or something. Worst case you do it for a bit and it's not for you. Generally, trades in rural areas in Australia are in constant demand. I knew a guy who used to work for flying doctors who got in to construction management and is happy as larry and making bank, so it does happen that transitioning in from non-tradie areas can be a winning move.
I don't want to be dismissive, so don't take this the wrong way.
Perhaps relying on skills as a developer was the problem? Society and the job market told you your skills were invaluable, but what did you actually do with them? What did you develop that was worthwhile? I don't know, but you should ask yourself that.
Much of the demand for developers was driven by a financial market that prized your skills, and many people bought into it. We are seeing now that such value was illusory.
How many new apps do we really need? How many new advertising algorithms are actually beneficial to society? How many of the ycombinator projects amount to more than a way to enrich autistic kids at the expense of everyone else?
You need to cast a wider net. There are a million jobs out there, but the problem is too many in the knowledge economy consider those jobs to be beneath them. Those in my peer and family circle who work blue collar jobs are much more content than those of us in the knowledge economy. Their expectations are such that they find satisfaction in their work, without warped or distorted expectations placed on them by their peers or themselves.
I solo founded and run a men's suicide prevention nonprofit organisation in the UK. It's early stage bootstrapped at the moment but I have long-term plans.
I've facilitated 200+ talking meetings at this organisation and another I was involved with previously. Anecdotally, the average attendee at the male-only meetings is ~45 years old, has some level of issues with personal and/or professional boundaries, has had suicidal ideation more than once, and has made plans for or attempted suicide more than once.
There is some form of survivorship bias in the above, but I get a lot of pride from our groups keeping men alive. We haven't lost anyone in 2 years.
Firstly can I give you a big hug for what you're doing.
Do you find that things such as the man-shed groups play an important part? I feel that life can be more isolating these days and where people move about more and life runs at a faster pace there is less time and fewer opportunities to fully relax and just "talk shit" with someone.
For me TV programmes like Mortimer & Whitehouse Gone Fishing are a reminder of how we should be spending some of our time.
I would imagine it feels like a huge responsibility, and also immensely fulfilling.
I couldn't imagine being brave enough for it, props to you for doing this!
Nice job. There's a group here in Australia who pass around crazy shirts with 'this is a conversation starter' aimed at men's suicide prevention. Neat marketing gimmick, maybe you can partner with them and use it. https://trademutt.com/pages/this-is-a-conversation-starter
To all those reading this thread, suicide isn't the answer. I know you've heard this and it's not special coming from me.
We all heard it's a permanent solution to a temporary problem and so many other quotes. I've lost a lot of people growing up to suicide and the impact it has on those who continue to live on that you love is traumatic.
The man who raised me like I was his son told my mother that he would never commit suicide. He had stage 4 cancer that eventually took his life on my 17th birthday. His reason for enduring through the pain was to teach me that suicide is never the answer because it hurts all those around you.
Although he passed away on my 17th birthday of his illness, he forever changed my life in so many ways. Each and every day I aim to be a better man because of how he loved me.
Please take a moment to utilize this time you have to change those around you. You don't need to create a massive company, be a CEO, have a career people admire, etc.. all you need to do is be someone that inspires others to improve like John did for me.
What I really don't like is to hear people who aren't struggling with it, to call someone else's on-going struggle "a temporary problem".
By the way, 2026 was the 30 year anniversary of his passing. I'm 47 years old and I still think of him almost daily.
Which can be resumed as "you are a slave and you must live and suffer because if not, the master will be sad"
Perhaps suicide is sometime the only sane answer in an insane world; Perhaps one must actually be sane to commit suicide (which is why there are so few of them, in the end);
> You don't need to create a massive company, be a CEO, have a career people admire, etc..
I don’t give a fuck about any of that. I just wanted to code…
That's a nice perspective, but sometimes life is just too much. Sometimes it is the solution
Let them eat cake
Ooof, not even that old here and I'm feeling that. Things are pretty bad all over. Gets hard to want to be around. AI took my job recently and I've been moved back to helpdesk and just awaiting further layoffs. There's not much fun in intellectual pursuits any longer as LLMs have taken it all. All my fun hobby projects are just jokes now as anyone with money can easily outdo me with an LLM. Sad times...
Why do you imagine yourself you be in competition with others while doing hobbies? Do you not find pleasure in the doing?
> All my fun hobby projects are just jokes
I exercise/lift weights, and you should too. My reps/effort/weight/PRs are a joke. I'm ~50% percentile on strengthlevel.com despite really fucking trying for ~6yrs now.
Many people are better than me at the EXACT SAME THING that I'm trying, at my bodyweight/age/sex. It doesn't discourage me. There is always room to improve. I track every workout, go to RPE 8-9, and try to do progressive overload. Seeing the numbers go up helps. I know it won't continue into infinity, especially as the decades go on... but yknow, I'm building a mentality here, not just a body. And when the weights go down, I'll be in the correct mental space for it.
I _loathe_ every. single. minute. of weightlifting. I'd rather be doing ANYTHING else. But I do it anyway. I think it teaches me things about life.
The only true goal is to grow and be better than yesterday. Effort is the reward.
I feel ya.
Most of my friends from high school and college are dead from random cancers, or drugs, or both.
I used to love skimming the new preprints on arXiv in the morning but now the signal is buried LLM drivel.
The one hobby I have that is kinda LLM-proof for now is speedrunning. Tool-assisted speedruns have always had their own categories for decades, and even if the LLMs or their descendants are used for routing or glitch hunting there’s still an element of human execution.
might be a good chance to sit with yourself and understand what you want to do in this life, we often think there is only one path in life and seek success as defined by society. Most of us neglect ourselves way too much, thinking we're seeking the right thing. It's a problem if we can only find joy in life in trivial things like work or even hobbies. It means we might be disconnected from ourselves. Also If you feel you need professional help you absolutely should seek it. Healing in this toxic society does take a lot of time and professional help can be really good sometimes.
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I feel like so many devs forget:
1. How utterly dogshit the vast majority of code is.
2. How utterly dogshit some of the most important or famous products and services are under the hood.
So what if LLMs can do something better? Our entire field and industry has been built on 'good enough'. God knows how many programming 'masterpieces' are on Github with 0 stars and 0 users.
I am more excited about programming by hand now more than ever. While I do not know what the future has in store for us in terms of careers, I still think I will always program by hand for fun just because I enjoy the feel of the flow-state/getting lost in something.
I would have guessed middle-aged men and women, not just men. I think the reason is being the sandwiched generation.
Most of us had/are having kids late. Now our parents are old/getting old and in need of our support. Along with that, parenting expectations have never been higher. So between shuttling kids from one thing to another all week, and taking parents to medical and other appointments, there isn’t much time or energy left to enjoy anything. It’s exhausting.
Combine that with someone already depressed, and any unfortunate trigger could push them over the edge. It’s partly anecdotal and some of what I’ve observed.
If my kids feel they owe me or are responsible for my elder years then I've failed as a parent. My children didn't choose to be born.
That's why we invented social safety nets.
Now parenting expectations may be sky high. That doesn't mean we have to be consumed by them.
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Thanks for this comment, because I think it's probably the only comment I've read where the hypothesis at least matches what is seen in the graph in the article, as it's really only men ages 45-64 who have seen a recent rise. Rates for younger men 25-44 have held steady for about the past 20 years and are significantly down since the mid 90s and early 00s. And yes, this is an all time high for men 45-64, but that's following a large dip for this age group around 95-2005, and the current rate is only slightly above where it was in 1980. And rates are significantly down compared to rates 30 years ago for men older than 65.
>I think the reason is being the sandwiched generation.
I agree, while most indicators should point to our lives being good overall, Millennials truly got screwed by their Boomer parent antics.
I feel like in a lot of important things, we suddenly went from being too young to being too old. Now we have responsibilities, heavier than our previous generation, but mostly lacked the support to build a stable foundation that can help taking care of those things.
It won't be as bad for GenZ/Alpha because Millenial parents are much more empathetic and supportive of their kids. Also, Boomers take care of their grandkids much more than their own kids, and also the Great Wealth Transfer will skip most Milennials and land directly over GenZ/Alpha.
I am overall optimistic on the outcome of AI, I think Alpha gen will live in a time of abundance and great opportunities. So, yeah, we were the shit gen between two great eras.
Middle aged family men are kinda invisible. The government only sees them when it needs taxation. Kids only see them when they need money. His wife ignores him too, or rather, they ignore each other as roommates.
They can’t escape because all those legal and moral responsibilities. They have to wait patiently until retirement —- if their hearts allow them to live that long.
I'm pretty happy being invisible these days. I have to balance my business, family, friends, hobbies and interests (I particularly enjoy going to jamband concerts, cooking for my family, and I've really gotten into anime and manga lately). Sometimes I feel a little guilty being invisible because we kinda need to speak up as much as we can these days, but to me, invisibility is an asset that allows me to enjoy life.
thats honestly kind of reassuring as a young person. i'm already invisible, so i don't have anything to fear as i age i suppose.
The things that motive me to stick around are holding the people ruining this world to account, documenting it and trying to thwart their efforts, a curiosity in seeing just how bad the climate crisis gets (how do we react, can it wake us from our stupor), and a desire to learn and help others (whether volunteering or just life advice). An absurdist lens helps provide some levity and not take things so seriously.
I had to step back from my career to focus on a mobility issue and at this point I don't know if the job path will continue to be there or even if I care. I'm focusing on small pleasures for now - cup of tea, exercise, peace and quiet. Music and film help provide a sense of meaning and catharsis.
I'm 40 and am accepting I will be single forever. I'm in shape / constantly lifting weights, dress well, work hard on maintaining a good attitude, and am financially stable etc. But not a great face, and extremely skinny (Think Oppenheimer or Bin Laden), am not funny or charismatic, and am not into dogs. Dating is a kick in the butt. Women don't "Feel the spark"
>> Dating is a kick in the butt
DON'T DO ONLINE DATING. Online dating has wrecked mating except for the most attractive 5%. Online dating is mostly a looks competition as first step. And you are saying you don't have the looks to win that game, so you need to play a different type of mating game.
Go to meetups instead via meetup.com and also look for local group activities happening on EventBrite - don't make finding a partner the focus or even the objective - go to a ton of meetups doing the things you love doing.
People form relationships doing common interests and having shared experiences. Have shared experiences with people and take finding a partner off the agenda - just enjoy the company of others. You never know what might happen but don't go looking for it.
I can tell you this for sure - many women are looking for a partner of character - someone kind who actually wishes to engage in relationship - a genuine person - and if time is taken to form relationship well in advance of the "will you be my girlfriend" pressure, then how you look is very often just not an issue. Have you noticed how when you get to know someone you see their character as much as their outward appearance? You might need to let people learn who you are gently and over time.
As for being charismatic or funny, as Oscar Wilde said: Be yourself - everyone else is taken.
Just do other things you like and don't worry about women. Relationships bring heartache and grief a good percentatge of the time anyway. Being engaged in things you like doing will bring you into contact with others and friendships or more may develop. But don't do them with that expectation.
If you don't know what to do, try to get involved with helping others in some way. It can be rewarding and give you a broader perspective on life.
A helpful thought for me was that literally everyone could reject you, except one person, and that's all you need is just that one person. Also along with that principle, maybe 99% of people actually aren't a good match for me, so if I mostly don't "click" with other people, that's totally fine — I don't know if I would want to be with 99% of possible people myself even if they were interested in me. It's just about finding the right kind of person that's similar to you. People with unique attributes may find someone else with the same unique attributes, or the other person may possess unique attributes that might somehow be a good fit for your unique attributes.
I heard that before when I just started dating. I would say don't worry about the outcome (especially pertaining to one person - you know close to nothing about them early on anyway), just try to connect with people. In my case, it would've helped calm my nerves, which were a hindrance. I've been with my partner for 8 years. A given outcome is never preordained and you don't need everyone to like you, just the one that you click with if you don't let rejection discourage you.
"not into dogs".
That's OK, most of the single woman I know don't care if you like pets or not. As for how you look that's not a huge problem - again most of those same women have expectations in the looks department that are best described as average. And you're gainfully employed! This is better and better.
The only thing I can suggest is to put yourself in a position to meet more women because the more actual real life women you meet the better the chance of finding one that feels that spark.
So far as I know (and maybe you can come up with more) there are two solid ways of meeting women. One is to hang out where they are. This is tricky because the closer this gets to a cattle call (think going out to a bar ) the more artificial and tricky this gets. Dating apps are like that but in spades.
Option two is those woman who didn't "feel the spark". Here me out.
Here's what you say. "This clearly isn't working out for you. But rather then this being a total loss, want to get to get together with some friends of mine and just hang out as friends?" or even, "Hey, you have friends - maybe there's no spark here but how about if I hang out with your friends?".
See, if you have female friends it's like another person helping you find someone to be not single with. Woman are a gregarious lot and they tend to both know a lot of people and to know a lot of women. I trust that it's not hard to see how this can work.
Eh, that's how it worked for me but your millage may vary.being funny and charismatic are something it is possible to practice, same as lifting weights. From what you say, sounds like a high leverage thing to look into
> and am not into dogs
That's fine. Women are more likely to be into cats anyways.
> (Think Oppenheimer or Bin Laden)
Lol you went from 0 to 100% really quickly there.
How are you extremely skinny? Do you have a digestive issue or something?
I struggled with weight gain for many years due to crippling IBS but I found some relief while bulking from a certain probiotic. (Got lucky - dozens of things I tried including fodmap, etc. never worked. That said, the probiotic only helps - not solves... and doesn't solve my absorption issues)
Surgery, steroids, and a serious bulk are in order if you're serious.
I am funny and at least somewhat charismatic but I'm gay and gay dating is simply broken. Both online and physical places focus on quick, cheap, sexual encounters. Meeting dudes outside of gay spaces results in max 5% chance that dude is also gay, which is a pathetic thing to be working with. I'm really not convinced that this life is worth living.
The most terrifying realization is that I've already spent pretty much half of my life yearning for love and not getting it. Even if I magically get married soon, it'll feel like a consolation prize.
Just visit/move to Philippines/China or (South) East Asia in general, if you are 40 (and white) you will have absolutely zero problems to find someone who will make you happy, though I would be realistic about age difference, which will either make you walking ATM or real partner.
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44, unemployed since July, on a cross country train trip trying to decide if it is worth going on. Stood on a bridge a bit too long the other day just wondering what the point is.
It is over for a lot of us in IT. It isn't going to get better, it is going to get worse very quickly. Rather than tell myself a convenient lie, I'd rather try to figure out why to keep living in a world like this.
Anyone going through the same thing, I hope you find something worth living for.
I'm 40; multiple disabilities due to a rare disease with no cure and neurodivergent. I live in a autocratic third-world country. I had to shutdown my startup for which I had put everything due to my health complications.
I was lost and didn't see any meaning to life, until;
I met this women, with a progressive muscle wasting rare-disease without cure which would eventually make her bed-ridden. Apart from regular work, she works day and night to help people with same disease as hers.
She's always jovial and never seen her complain. Watching her, my problems became minuscule. We fell in love and got married.
I have found my new meaning for life.
P.S. My username is my name, feel free to reach out.
What if, in a year, the labor market impact is significant across the board and unemployment is reaching historic heights?
The government should provide the financial support and implement mechanisms for distributing AI-generated wealth more broadly, as planned in the policy proposals Anthropic and OpenAI publish.
I am truly optimistic about the future, and I think it is too early to say that things are not going to get better.
We could very well have a nice life with minimal requirement to work for salary in the near future.
Keep going man, switch countries, never call it done.
You never know what awaits behind the corner.
Absolutely not trying to downplay your feelings about this, but was your career really the only thing you were living for? I just find it so hard to relate to. There's so many other activities that bring meaning to life. Try a dance class
We should talk.
Hey Herman, saw your post on an X post today, i'm from Argentina and wanted to reach out. Never used this forum before but registered to talk to you. I know these are strage times with maybe more uncertainty than has ever been before in human history (i know i may be too dramatic with that statement, humany has had dark times before)
Still, even in these strange days we are living on, I know and i'm certain that all of us have something to live for, call it a purpose, call it a calling, but there is one, for me and there is one for you. We are more than a career, a job, or a talent. I understand it may be hard to see that if we commited a big part of our lives to that career, but as long as we breath, we have the chance to take new decissions.
I truly hope you find that, it make take some time, but it is there. I'll pray for you man, i know God has a purpose for you, and He knows you, and loves you.
Please feel free to reach out to me, you can find me on X at @santiagosas1 or IG at @santiagosas
Take care Herman!
Tell us about the train trip.
hey
I’m college educated, have a successful career doing things that I enjoy to a decent degree, have a wonderful house, wife and kid. If you showed my life to my younger self and asked “would you take this life?” I would have answered every single time wholeheartedly “yes! I’m living the dream!”
But I only recently truly accepted that the life I am living (and have created for myself and family) is actually the dream. We so often miss the greatest times in our lives because we are too focused on the unknowns of the future.
I think this rings true for many people, but the mind works in mysterious ways. There are folks who have nothing who are mentally well, and folks who have everything they ever wanted who are severely ill.
This rings true for me - I wish I could go back and tell my younger self not to prevaricate over trivialities. Maybe it's rose colored glasses but those times feel very idyllic otherwise.
It's interesting to see this on the HN frontpage alongside an article about how American's social activity has steeply declined over the last 30 years [1]. To me these are very much related. We have less and less community than ever.
Then, at the same time, other aspects of our lives -- family raising and career -- are trickier than ever. Family raising these days takes more time than ever [2] (which admittedly is good and bad). Career growth in the era of stagnant wages has been tough for many fields of work, and AI threatens many of the remaining ones.
It's hard to feel fulfilled these days: our social lives are poor, and we're constantly busy doing things that don't necessarily help us get ahead.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50089921 [2] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2026/01/09/millenni...
44. Three kids. Getting divorced. I live in my car now. Why? Because I have zero trust any job will come back. Also: I enjoy living in my car. I remain highly active building and building and building with agents. I am very up to speed. Have been getting interviews. But none of them convert. I think all the companies capable of paying my salary needs are going to be only downsizing forever. So that leaves do my own company or a startup. Neither of which cover my alimony or child support. I missed my last interview last week - I think they genuinely pulled the req, simply - not hiring the role anymore due to AI uncertainty.
I don’t know about everyone else. My approach is to cut costs to the absolute bone and live like a monk.
I have no idea what is happening to my employability. The only thing I can do is get as lean as possible. Thus - life in a van / car.
>alimony
Why on earth should you be on the hook for alimony given your circumstances and situation? That makes zero sense.
Try going to somewhere overseas within the same timezone with lower living expenses. This will be easier than living in a vehicle and more interesting and does not preclude flying back for jobs.
My older brother killed himself nearly 20 years ago at the age of 50. I don't think he ever considered himself successful. He had financial problems, alcoholism, and was lonely without any lasting relationships. When his resources were exhausted he just ended his life. There was nothing in the estate of value since his assets, such as they were, were less than tax liability he had accumulated. The owner of the house he had been renting tried to get us siblings to pay for repairs and cost of disposal, but we demurred (and told the court we'd be happy if that owner was named executor; they declined the honor.) I think his car just disappeared off the street one day, probably towed to an abandoned car lot and auctioned. At least the state recouped some of the owed taxes that way.
I'm curious to learn more, and I'm sorry for your loss. Did he always struggle with relationships? It does seems like people with good relationships (friends, family, lovers, etc.) have a much higher quality of life. Yet, for many men, it is very hard to build and maintain these.
I am 36 and I have been thinking about suicide a tiny bit lately. But I will share my perspective with you, hopefully to draw a picture how different circumstances can be. I live in Ukraine and my optionality in life collapsed the day the war started. I had a good life, good income and traveled a lot. I used to dream of a career in big tech and life in different countries just to give it a taste. Now I am not able to leave the country because I am a male of conscription age. My city is being attacked by drones daily, and ballistic rockets a few times a month. Witnessing your country getting wrecked with rockets and drones is hell of an experience. Businesses, electricity plants, infrastructure, gas stations becoming rubble. There is also little hope in a resolution of this soon. I have to work on a job which provides a reservation from military service if I don’t want to fight, otherwise I will be picked up on the street to join the military.
I have it so much better than a lot of my countrymen, but holy shit does this suck and it is not getting better anytime soon. The hopelessness gets you.
Software engineering is one of my last remaining pillars of life remaining more or less intact. At least I get to write some code and make computers do things.
Life is a strange thing.
18. same ass of a country (to outsiders, have a look at all the countless debacles concerning corruption to understand why "ass"), except that I have 7 mostly worry-free years left to live and the market for juniors (and thus, me) is closed. if I get drafted, I'm waiting out for an opportunity to shoot my head.
honestly, having a decently paying blue-collar job made me think whether tech is worth it at all, given that I'll lose all the extra benefits (from canteen to proper bomb shelter to gym to commute) and cut my already tight paycheck by 20-25%. for what? for "tech"? where I have to be able to wake up at 3AM when the client's LLM took down their prod, commute to a vulnerable office in Kyiv (and pay for expensive AND equally vulnerable housing there), live under a threat of getting fired because I was "not AI enough" or whatever management wants, or because I don't have gigabit Wi-Fi in the shelter? fuck it, I'll rather be a night-shift loader and idk, learn embedded at home.
the world devolving into proompting has ruined tech for me. prolly I'll get a Cat. C driver's license and spend little what I have remaining of life on the road. if I get lucky, I may eventually reach CE and Euro 95 certs, and that in turn gives me some sort of safety against mobilization.
if the war ends before I become 25, I'll likely end up a stereotypical himbo truck driver. I'm tired of having to perform the smartness.
I hope more than anything Ukrainians will stay strong and persevere. Perhaps not even for themselves or their country, but just to witness the enemy collapse when it all ends. The mere fact that you are Ukrainian and live in Ukraine invokes a certain level of respect.
It is my one sincere wish in life that the suffering of Ukrainians is not for naught and that the people of Europe support you until victory.
I'm extremely sorry to hear about your life and honestly I don't want to be someone who is provides faux comfort saying everything will be alright. However, I am trying to imagine myself in your shoes and if it ever came to a point where I thought it my life is better off taken out, I would be willing to explore my absolute last options, no matter how miniscule the probability may be. Maybe some variant of high-risk emmigration? Maybe there's a waterway or a boat route or underground passage or forest or something.If I was anyway planning to take my life away without giving these extremely low probability options a chance, might as well go down with a fight. Probably this is naive, but that's only because I have personally never been in such a situation ever to even be able to provide a decent enough advice. I am completely baffled and very sorry you are going through this. You're not the first one to share this experience and probably won't be the last and at times like this it irritates me the feminist organizations all over the world have been dead silent on this matter. Equality only when it benefits them, I guess. I wish you good luck and hopefully get to meet you in person to learn of your amazing story of survival.
Good luck!
Necessity is the mother of invention and I can only imagine the volume of necessity that your environment demands. If fighting is not an option, can you use your skills to make some lemonade out of a giant bowl of lemons?
Hang in there. This, too, shall pass.
Life is strange. And circumstance even stranger.
I guess a die is rolled somewhere in the universe and we are born—who knew where, who knew when.
And there are many who are even less fortunate than ourselves.
Did you consider voluteering with the Ukraine Army to be a drone pilot? There are many jobs that are far from the zero line, so very little risk of death/injury. Also, from everything that I read, most people cherish the friendships they build during time of war. There are few things that bring together men fighting a common enemy.
Whatever I'm about to say may sound hollow, given that I've not been in your shoes.
At my previous (well known tech) company, we had a number of older Romanians who grew up in the Communist era. I became close with one of them. And the stories he told me were just harrowing. They were not at war, but the government simply couldn't provide for the people (other than giving them a good education). The struggle for basic necessities in the 80's became real. He had a wife and a newborn, and the wife was sick, and they couldn't afford any furniture. There was real concern the baby would die because the mother couldn't get even basic rest (no mattress, no bed, sleeping on concrete floor, etc).
The stuff he had to do to ensure she got a bed was crazy.
And then later there were food shortages, etc. Dodging bullets, etc.
But they all somehow persevered and focused on surviving. And then got out of the country as soon as the borders opened up. Eventually, because of their skills, they got great jobs. Very senior and well respected in the company.
But of course, they know people who did lose hope and ultimately committed suicide.
Living in the US, I've encountered lots of former refugees from war zones. People like yourself with skills did well here. For sure they struggled, but eventually they all "made it".
If you have skills, I hope you can last long enough to get there too.
It is sad to see so many smart, inquisitive and dedicated people who come to this site feel this way. I suspect a lot of it may be because of how dedicated and passionate people are about their work and their skill and it's getting harder to make a living with it or feel like they are being valued for it.
I strongly encourage everyone to try keeping a gratitude journal - just write three positive things that happened to you today.it can really change the way you look at your life.
A lot of the suicidal ideation has to do with lack of agency and control over your situation in life. I am a firm believer that you need to take a step back and look at the possibilities in your life. You are not just a SWE/whatever your job is - you are a problem solver, someone with curiosity, someone dedicated someone who is playing other roles in life than just an employee - a friend, a parent, neighbour, child etc
If you feel like you have no control over the path you are in - change the path, don't stop the walk. You can move to a different career, different country, different partner. Sure some of our circumstances cannot be changed - but don't make the arbitrary standard of life you set for yourself determine whether your life is worth living.
I really empathise with the voices in here. Remember you are not alone.
But also remember that building a life, even for the most successful people, is like building a castle on sand. Existentially everything crumbles with time, our brains, bodies, income, status.
When we hold onto ideas of how things should be, we suffer, because we live in a reality of flux, and that flux seems to be increasing over time. We are moving towards great volatility and we are all apart of it.
In times like these people need a philosophy - I believe in something akin to Buddhism, because it’s taught me the more we cling, the more we suffer.
I implore everybody to do that soul searching and realise that we can always find something else, and something better, if we adjust our expectations and attachments of how we think it should be.
This is the greatest change of our time, and the outcomes are not a reflection of your performance.
If anyone is interested, checkout Ram Dass, some great YouTube videos and podcasts that can really help get a sense of life
I am not much of a gamer and sure as hell don't keep up with many people that I gamed with 20 years ago but there was one guy that I would talk with ever few years. I talked with him and a few months later he was gone. I don't know why his suicide hit me so hard. Maybe because I connect him to a different phase of my life. Maybe because he was the guy who was the life of chat. I don't know.
What I do know is that I wish he could have known how many people would miss him.
Makes a lot of sense to me. If you're young and things aren't going so well then at least you can have hope that you'll be able to turn it around. You have time on your side. That all goes away when you start to get to middle age. You're locked in by your earlier choices.
Now I'm here staring at AI with the reality that if it makes my skills irrelevant I'll have no fallback, and I'll be at an age where reskilling is extremely hard and I'm still nowhere close to retiring.
The graph shows that suicides overall are down from 30 years ago, while the same cohort that was higher in 1985-2005 (25-44) is now higher in 2005-2025 (45-64). Perhaps there is something about the generation more than the situation or the age of the individual.
It's really helpful to read this thread. There's a limit to how much I'll share but one thing that might ring true for others is how sort of crazy I feel because the forces people on this forum are talking about are hitting the world very unevenly.
I like my therapist quite a bit but respectfully he has no concept of how AI is impacting huge swaths of white collar work. To people who haven't experienced the 2 year delta in what a coding job looks like, you can sort of sound like a nut. Or they won't appreciate the magnitude of it. Especially if they're not plugged into the news.
I frequently look around and ask "is this really happening?" - I think it is happening, as convenient as it might be if it weren't.
Before everyone jumps in with their favorite ad-hoc reason, take a look at the graph first. The headline is technically true, but barely. For the 45-64 age group, the suicide rate is barely different than it was in 2012 and 2018, and about the same as it was in 1985 (24 vs 22-23 per 100k.) Seems like all age groups have held steady (10-24 25-44 and 75+) or trended up a bit (45-64 and 64-75) since the early 2000's, after dipping from the 1980s.
The top comment here recommends Emile Durkheim's Suicide book, which is a very good recommendation.
I want to recommend another one, specifically about male depression, called I Don't Want to Talk About It by Terrence Real [1].
It's known that more men than women commit suicide, although more women are diagnosed with depression. The book argues that it's because male depression is often not overt, but it's nevertheless there.
Men often end up being enclosed in their bubble, trying to fix things on their own, not willing or not knowing how to connect with others. But this connection is so important, because humans are a social species.
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I'm 40 years old and taking care of both of my parents. One with cancer the other half side paralyzed after stroke. I also have thoughts like this mostly because of the current situation but also because it's hard to imagine what would be my purpose in this world if they are gone (I just hope they go before me)
I am not suicidal and I am lucky to have loving people who I also love around. That said, with all the rapid changes in the software engineering industry and in life in general, I sometimes wonder what I am doing with my life and why.
It's like plenty of things are happening by inertia, but none of them bring any joy or make lots of sense. In such moments, I really envy people who have the courage to work on something they truly believe in. I have quite a few people to take care of, which requires financial resources, so I am not there yet.
In my circle, I've objectively had both the best and the worst life. I can tell when people are thinking about suicide because they reach out to find out if I've done myself in yet lol.
For them, I keep going. I think because both the best and worst times in my life were roughly due to my own decisions, I always have the idea that I will get back to the good times.
Tomorrow a article, with the addition "... Women most affected".
There is a study about the happiness curve that also talks about this, about in most countries happiness does decline in middle age but begins to recover around after 50 years old :-p.
https://www.weforum.org/stories/health-and-healthcare-system...
Things that work for depression: writing, composing music, exercise, playing video games. Things that don't help: alcohol nor drugs. Role of family and community: YMMV. I envy lots of folks with supportive and kind families, but I also witnessed much suffering and terrible loss caused by a loving family that doesn't quite get the loving part right.
With that out of the way, I'll say that for as long as suicide mortality is well below cancer mortality, society doesn't really have a suicide problem.
But for beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.
A strong aspect I see of this in friends is this: some variation of "it is too late to start over."
I was in a similar position as a highly successful programmer after the dotcom crash in the early 2000's. Like George Bailey in "It's a wonderful life" I stood on the bridge looking down.
I had $300,000 in the bank. The thought occurred to me "What kind of idiot kills himself with that much money in the bank? Thus I started adventuring around the country looking for something to do.
I ended up driving a city bus in Las Vegas, mostly the double decker bus on The Strip. It was the most fun I ever had on a job. No regrets.
I graduated college in 1992.
2 male friends from college died by their own hand within the last decade.
By most measures, they were successful professionals.
I see this a lot speaking to friends and just in general online discourse. Too much news and social media. Perhaps it will all go to shit. AI is definitely changing the entire world, our industry being the first on the chopping block (maybe).
But, what can you do. There's always been injustice in the world. You just never used to hear about it 24/7/365.
Now you wake up and read about it on the little screen, later you see it on the big screen, talk about it at work, then go to bed and read about it on the little screen again. I have friends who can't even talk to me for 30 minutes without just bringing the entire mood down with doomerism.
Idk, I just do sports, work and spend time with whoever I can in whatever little free time I have left over. I had to forcibly block every news site and social media via an app otherwise I'd get addicted again and become a cynic. Reddit is by far the worst for me, insta is 2nd.
Unlike 95% of people I speak to I actually love my life and enjoy my work, and just hope that AI doesn't steal that from me.
Growing up as a first generation immigrant in a country with some of the worst inequality in the world taught me to just ignore everything but what you need to do.
This is something I sometimes feel guilty about now that I have a comfortable life. But, I feel like trading that ignorance for constant awareness just leads to anxiety and guilt and is a poor trade I don't have to make.
Edit: also this is just 1 factor. There are other factors like actual poverty, loneliness etc. I don't meant to put forth the idea that it's purely the 24 hour news cycle and social media that's to blame, just 1 aspect I see most often in my life.
Man this is for real. I’m 46 and I tell my therapist and my friends that I’m not suicidal but like… can we wrap this shit up already? (A tasteless joke stolen from Tom Segura)
I have been meditating on WHY I feel this way. On paper things are pretty good. I’m married. I have a job that is safe for now. I have kids. Two dogs. A house. Two cars.
But I feel really lonely and unseen and like I am a disappointment to everybody including myself. Like it makes sense I’m unseen because I’m unexceptional.
So I’ve done some things that have helped a little including scheduling lunches with friends and coworkers, more frequent date nights (especially double date nights), working out (setting and achieving even small pointless goals like mile time, distance, weight lifted, etc really helps).
All of that and it feels like I’m bailing water out of a sinking ship. It is barely enough to stay afloat and heaven help me if I skip a day or make a mistake…
It is hard to imagine doing this for another 30 years…
I used to think Soma was one of the more disturbing ideas in Brave New World. These days, I understand the temptation a little better.
This is me. I was in a leadership role at a large institution and made the mistake of joining a promising startup (great partners, good funding).
In 2021, the company went down, and since then I have been rejected for everything. And by everything, I literally mean every possible way to get money in. I have only been scraping the leftovers at the bottom. Recently, I joined an outsourcing company to do digital transformation work (I have deep AI experience). It's shocking to see people getting hired with 0-1 interviews who then prove to be incompetent just because they are the right caste.
35 yrs old. Lost my job in 2024. Did a brief stint for a much less pay then quit. Now, unemployed for about a year and a half now.
Thinking of building a career in marketing in some form ( writing or video editing). I have a substack. Started a Youtube channel also. But, still clueless about how to do anything right now.
The money that was meant to be my kid's college fund and my retirement fund is helping me survive right now.
Pushing 50, homeless, broke, last interview today from a rented office with overdue rent.
Suicidal for a long time.
Interview fails? I'm out. I have everything set - account deletions, device wipes, and method. Will keep it low key if that happens.
at 40 I became a woman and never been happier
My father was the first man in our family to live past 50. Maybe we’re overthinking it. And by it, I mean everything. Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim. The fact that I can wallow in self-pity of a comforting echo chamber in a swipe and a click and 0 emotional effort compared say, calling my mom; we have been aggressively primed and modified in our behaviors for the last 20 years and people are really wondering why people are committing suicide?
The only people afraid to put AI in charge are the ones who have invested interest in keeping you sad, lonely, and afraid.
There are numerous NDE reports that say people who commit suicide go through extreme agony after they die. It’s never an option. Tell this to anyone who thinks about this mistake and it may help him. Although he should do his own part of searching and listening to such stories to understand how big of a mistake this is.
I am 43 and only in the last few years have things turned better. I want to say that life is tough for different people from different parts of the world. For various reasons. But overall we have a set of systems that do not care.
The lack of friendship, care, love cannot be eased with money. I used to be crazy about startups. I used to want to live in New York (I am from Kolkata). I had a great run in my twenties but I crashed many years ago. Living in Germany helped a lot. I realized I was not loved or cared for. By myself mostly.
My parents love me but my dad has mental health issues which took a really bad toll on my childhood and teen years. I swept away the need for a love and care and replaced it with money. Many of us are doing this. The system needs most of us to slave. Now, I have been living the village life for about 6 years. I moved my parents as well. We have farms. I still write software, well, mostly generate them with LLMs.
There is a sense of purpose here that I started to feel. Over these last years, I have become more calm than I ever was. Happier, in a way I notice, every day. With less money than I ever had. Life is not about lots of achievements. We need meaning, love, purpose, care, friendships. We need slows walks, flowing water, walk in the rain, healthy food with zero labels. We need to grow our crops, care for animals, raise kids as a village.
I know I am typing this on a computer. But I no longer work for any tech company. I have a small consultancy client. I live as per a typical countryside routine. Most of my (whatever little savings) money is now invested in our farms where I work a few hours everyday, on time. Animals, dirt, mud, poop, crops, cleaning. All of it. Connected to how life is supposed to be. I used to hate glass buildings, still do.
Concrete, glass and everything about artificial spaces makes me sick. I am just one person, I do not have some research paper. But I know how I feel today vs a decade ago. Hope it helps.
I am in my late 40's and I am struggling more than I ever have in my entire life. I have a great marriage and 3 children and I have a good job with good income. I have nothing to be unhappy about.
And yet my children are grown now and mostly gone. I feel a profound sense of loss.
I feel like I'm entering the age where I'm a prime candidate for any myriad of diseases and I get so anxious every time I get a symptom. I go to the Dr. a lot. I went to the ER twice every year in the past 3 years. Ironically, its occurred to me that if I do have something terminal, I don't have to go on like this. And I like the thought of that. I'm both terrified of death and also really looking forward to it.
I used to enjoy my work, but AI has made it so that I just kind of show up and ask it for things. Anyone could do what I do. There's no sense of accomplishment in anything.
The worst thing about this is that I have every reason to be the happiest person here. So the fact that I feel the way that I do actually makes me a pretty bad person and that makes the whole thing feel a whole lot worse.
Late 40s here, on antidepressants for the anxiety side more than depression.
I can totally see why this is highest in my demographic.
An underlying cause is quiet desperation, there are elements of failure in ones' own life, perhaps pressure caused deliberately by others as they step on you to get to the top. Perhaps it's the fact you start to notice death, your parents, family, and friends. You also see the beginning of your own aged based health decline.
Until society can support genx and older with their goals at this age, instead of telling them to get talking in men's groups, or saying it's alright to show emotions to a generation that grew up without this culture, this will probably continue.
I don't have an answer to fix it, but what I do feel would help is if was treated as a high risk stage of life without stigma. So 45+ men or menopausal women, can take time off to adjust, spend more time with family and friends, and it be treated as normal process, like a sabbatical or maternity leave or just a wind down from society like partial retirement.
This will never happen obviously because it means as a society we have to have a better welfare state and drop the ingrained idea that if you're not working you're a problem (not working is NOT the same as not contributing or benefiting to society, but people conflate this).
Perhaps the AI age will force us to fix that due to mass unemployment, the way COVID kick started remote working.
Highest among non-married middle-aged men or all middle-aged men?
People will die because nature works this way. Of course if humans find out ways to live longer (there are experiments, biological treatments) then this world will change a lot. But well... Everyone did not exist before born - if death is similar, it probably does not matter for us humans. If there are not God, Gods and something else then our lives could be pointless. You can die tomorrow and you will not find out it. You will not know that your family members or friends (if you have) will be sad. It is hard topic but you know.
I wrote an article about youth mental health for my substack recently that touched on this. The suicide rate for the 50-59 demographic is far higher than the general population, but it collapses once you hit retirement age. If I had to guess, social supports for seniors plays a role.
Battle it by working, meaningful work -- help others, no matter how small your actions may be, one step at a time...one day at a time.
Just keep moving forward :)
Life is beatiful
I am early fifties, and due to some sort of intrusive thoughts OCD-ish variant of ADHD, I have probably thought about suicide 25,000 times in the last ten years (not an overestimate). It is a several-times-per-day thing, if it’s not all day. Sometimes only an intrusive flicker, sometimes very much not. I have spent the last year or two dealing with burnout thinking about it regularly in depth; usually not for now, but for maybe ten years time when I believe it will be necessary.
I am a single man with no dependents who is struggling to work due to burnout, and I perceive that we are really not far off a world where young people will take seriously the idea that older people like me have had our time. I do not expect to be able to work for much longer because why would they let us keep our jobs or get new ones when we are taking away theirs? What can we teach them when we have built the tools that will destroy their livelihoods and wrecked the environment in which they live? Why should they listen to us at all?
Leaving a bit early may be the morally responsible thing for me to do. Understanding that living until I am dependent on care from the young is not going to be a good time when we are a despicable, despised generation, it’s an oddly liberating thought.
I believe every death is unique and not a statistic.
However, since the article is about "men" and "suicide". There is substantial evidence that suggest women (especially young girls) attempt suicide more than men... while men are are more likely to die from a suicide [1]
Does gender have a role in suicide? Maybe. But I would hesitate to generalize too much.
[1] I asked chatgpt to back up my claims. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
A lot can be said of “They live” 1988 John carpenter film - OBEY CONSUME CONFORM
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I am 22 years old cs graduate.currently experiencing suicidal thoughts a lot of even the experienced people are having a difficult time then my situation is even more dire suicide has started to seem like a viable option !
There have been plenty of periods in history with millenarian challenges, but I don't think there has been a period in history with so many different existential threats and uncertainties happening at the same time.
Between climate change, AI, economic instability, political catastrophes, various actual and impending wars, social media bot farms and trad media content farms, and entire industries that exist to lie about what's happening and pressure everyone to work and consume and live an ideal lifestyle with ideal productive values - there's quite a lot going on.
This is a very distressing article. If you're considering suicide, please don't.
It's the most heartbreaking situation. Suicide numbers are abhorrent in the US, Something like 50,000 people die each year.
This is the relatively more overt part of the depopulation agenda for decades.
This was a tough article for me. I'm only alive because I have to be. I have one family member left in poor health, and they depend on me, but when they are gone, I don't really see the point of sticking around. I am simply sticking around for them.
The last thing I will do is die alone, or worse, confined to a nursing home, abused by underpaid staff. Yes: I have tried over 15 medication's, therapy, you name it. I came to the conclusion a few years ago that accepting that my life has an end, and they I will make that decision to end it, has been comforting. I feel like it's the only, perhaps last control, I might ever have
Shout out to Tough Guy Book Club - find a chapter in your area, get reading, and get talking. If there's no chapters nearby, start one!
I'm in that group, and the only thing I hear is how women, immigrants and <<enter intersectionalist jargon here>> has it the worst. We're done with this shit. If you're thinking about suicide, seek other men, you will find more understanding than you think, it is worth living! Fuck this society, let the brotherhood flourish against it.
Most people that age right now have no idea where they are going or where they will end up. And not even in their delusions can they pretend the world will somehow magically care about them in another 30 years.
Personally I have given up on hoping for a nice planned and well executed life up through retirement. My own skill set just isn't valued enough by the markets to set myself up separated from the festering human pits. Im just going to go for as long as I can just to see how things go at this point. I always did enjoy thrillers and tragedies, it sucks to be in one but it is better than being in nothing at all. And if the world just keeps getting crazier, maybe ill just join them in being crazy and maybe hopefully go out with a bang near the end.
It's about time to reread books by James Hollis
"Under Saturn's shadow" for instance
28, Lost R&D job in gamedev, still looking, a friend of mine was sending applications for a year (Fullstack), It's tough out there
Fascinating. Curious what's preventing these folks to try themselves at entrepreneurship; with whatever toolset they have access to?
E.g. Audos.com already helped over 10k of similar "everyday" folks start their thing; many are makign decent moneys
Mid-40s western man living far from the West. Have three young children with a mom who is currently ineligible to hop on a plane with me back to my country of origin.
If you haven't already made it like the good times claiming influencers (@@ dhh and levels) who've accrued enough capital to ride whatever wave comes it is looking pretty bleak under these waters.
At least with my pension's survivor benefits and savings the kids would be able to make it til their 20s well supported with a better quality of life than what it looks like the labor market will afford me.
I've contemplated suicide and I'm not even middle age
Ancillary comment,
From TFA:
She said: “The evidence is clear that successive governments have failed to deliver on their promise to reduce suicide rates and make suicide prevention a priority. Today must act as a wake up call. The current approach is not working; we need meaningful action and proper funding if lives are to be saved.”
Well, if you look around at this world, there ain't much hope for the future.
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The weight of expectations is a heavy one.
I think about suicide every day. Thankfully death still scares me. If I didn’t have some of the responsibilities that I have then I probably would have drank myself to death and accidentally overdosed on pills just due to mixing both together.
I’m in the stereotypical category. I’m college educated, have a successful career doing what I enjoy, have a great house, wife and kids.
I deal with OCD, negative thoughts I can’t get control of, low self esteem, paranoia, and trust issues. It’s impossible for me to feel loved. However, I’m one of those silent sufferers and no one would be the wiser for the most part. Death feels like a sweet escape after having a few drinks. However, I’m too OCD to actually kill myself because I have too many final tasks and arrangements to finish up so that I can leave everything perfectly in order. The guilt aspect is serious too.
Middle-age is a serious thing to face. It’s a super scary time on all fronts, because if you don’t already have your shit together, then you’re completely fucked if something happens.
Sucks when friends dies. Cancer, accidents and so on is just terrible, but suicide really sucks. One of my old friends ended his life a couple of years ago. It really hit me.
https://archive.ph/sBfx5
Who can blame them?
After having failed romantically one too many times and having an average dev job AI will probably take from me, that won't allow me to FIRE for 6 more years even if I can keep it, life's not fun for me at 35 already, how will it be at 55, all wrinkled up, frail, probably cancer stricken and with no future potential left?
At the end of the day we (men) are the ones expected to provide, to win over the women, to keep the marriage from falling apart, to keep the kids safe. And at any point we fail in our career or one of these things we are left staring into the abyss with no one to help us but ourselves. This is why I reject a lot of liberal views. Even when we tried equality, all we did was take away power from the man that is still expected to do everything.
How is it possible for these websites to not offer a “reject all” button when it comes to cookies but instead “reject and subscribe?” Is that because they are paywall and the website is subscription based? I thought there was a new law that said website users needed to be able to reject cookies (google offers this now for example, a simple, one click reject all button)
The really scary thing is that we're at the beginning of the AI revolution, and even more people will be out of their jobs soon. It will only get worse for a next decade or so.
I'm almost 50, so it's too late to go into trades. Things are not looking good.
A few years ago, I had a series of health conditions that left me in unbearable suffering every moment of every day. At a certain point, when it was obvious that there was no probable way out, my mind reflexively starting tell me to kill myself. I would look at any menial object and my mind would automatically start considering ways I could use that object to end my life.
This went on for months, on and off. I wouldn't say I "endured" it, but I trained myself to just try to get through the next hour, or the next minute if things were really bad.
I'm much better now and that experience in many ways helped me, but I have no romantic feelings about it and I'd prefer if it hadn't happened. If someone had given me a painless out that I could trust back then, I almost certainly would have taken it. Instead, I learned acceptance in a pretty awful way.
I'm saying this for a specific reason: for many people, their suicide isn't some act of "giving up" or not being willing to endure; it's that some physiological process has begun that strongly urges you to do it every moment of every day. I understand why people have some anger or disappointment with loved ones who have died by suicide, but I personally do not feel that way. After what I experienced, I'm just happy that any of us get a chance to live in peace at all.
This touches on many issues that basically amount to "society is deeply broken".
The first is that in many places, men over 50 are one layoff (or even one divorce) away from total financial ruin. Other comments here tell a story of people in tech who thought their careers were mapped out but AI has destroyed it all and they don't know what they're going to do. After 40, and after 50 in particular, once you lose that job your chances of getting another shrink drastically.
The second is patriarchy. Men tend to be valued and defined by what they can do and provide. Lose that and you lose your identity. As other comments have said, you become invisible.
Third is the general idea that only one's ties to other people are keeping an awful lot of people here. There have been studies on this and psychologists have frameworks to describe this. In a world where society is falling apart that resistance is crumbling.
It costs so much to just live now. People might need 2 or more jobs and be one emergency away from ruin. Eventually a lot of people must think "why am I doing all this?"
Lastly, the article says "every suicide is a devastating tragedy". I... don't agree. Certainly people with terminal conditions or they have to live with, say, crippling mental health conditions, I have to respect people's choices. It's their life. They're the only ones who have to live it.
I'm in my 50s now. In some ways I'm quite fortunate but I also have not one not two but three disabilities: poor vision just hovering above legal blindness (and getting worse), ADHD and level 1 autism. The last two weren't diagnosed until my 40s. The medical consensus that you could have both only formed in the 2010s. Prior to that it was believed to be one or the other. ADHD can be treated but autism? You just have to live with it. And it's incredibly isolating in a way I know will never change. Fun for me.
I'm not a religious person. I'm a strict atheist actually. But I've had one unshakeable belief my entire life and that is that I won't live to be old. I have no basis for that belief but I can remember thinking 30 years ago there's less than 50% chance of making it to 60 and less than 10% of making it to 70. No idea why.
I've now had Covid 6 times, which is funny given how isolated I am but despite 5 jabs, each time it's worse. I'm kinda surprised I don't have Long Covid honestly. The last time I was bedridden for 2 weeks and it took 4 weeks to "recover". To physically exert myself really took almost 3 months. Do I see myself surviving that another 10-20 times? No.
I guess another aspect to all this is a thing called passive suicidal ideation. A lot of autistic people have this apparently and it's not so much a desire to end it all but rather kinda wishing just not to be here. It's just too hard. I... get it. It's kinda like wishing some other sperm impregnated that ovum years ago.
I mean because I've seen and done everything I have hope to see and do in my life. Why not just die.
It's not surprising that murder-suicides are popular in the US amongst this age group, responsibility can be crushing.
Any breakdown by race?
I’m bored of how shocked people are about this. It’s been going on decades now. Think of all the great and/or famous men that have killed themselves in the last 60 years. It stacks up quick. No one cares.
To anyone with a degree not in software, you can pivot to a hands-on job. I'm a technician for factory equipment. AI is not replacing me for a long time.
Just got “over the hill” here. It’s…complicated, but not at all surprising on the whole.
My friends who are older are pessimistic as fuck. Several have been unemployed for lengthy stretches due to ageism in American hiring practices, which has resulted in their life crumbling around them as they lack the resources for basic upkeep anymore. I see that and shudder for myself, wondering if we’ll finally get this sorted before I hit my 50s or if this is just going to be a shitty fucking thing for the foreseeable future.
Social activity is hard for middle-aged men. We spend several hours a day commuting to and from work, which eats into our social budgets. Hard to host dinners, attend game nights, or go on dates when 80% of your day is spoken for work alone in some capacity (preparing for, getting to, performing, commuting home), which leaves us isolated. Most of our peers have paired off, so they have a stronger support structure - yet they too disappear at alarming rates.
At every conceivable intersection for the past fifty years, we’ve chosen to make life more hostile and less comfortable. I’m tired of feigning surprise at what, at least to me and my circles, is so sickeningly obvious.
Guys should go back to the basics.
Back when we were in high school we were aiming to do the least amount of work to get through the year and spend the rest of the time hanging out with our mates.
A big part of our fault is also that we accept to get dragged by women into a territory that is not ours which is made up of large amount of introspection, extremely fine margins between good times and awful times and walking on eggshells with regards to social cues , the avoidance of social faux passes, planning years and years into the future down to the smallest detail .
That's the perfect recipe for depression for guys
We should go back to the basics and hangout with our mates trying to do the least amount of work as possible, play sports, banter with each other, take everything much less seriously and when we feel the need to have sex shoot for ONS or visit escorts or prostitutes and then go back to our mates.
"What Got You Here Won't Get You There"
The name of the book stays in my head rent free (even though the book itself probably isn't worth reading). So far, 40s look like that to me.
Also, maybe that "socialist support net" Europe has, and techbros loved to diss, isn't so laughable right now?
Sometimes I think joining a cult wouldn’t be too bad right about now. Hear me out: a bunch of people pool money to buy a massive amount of land somewhere and then building everything they need by hand: homes, farms, etc. and everyone has a strong sense of community from daily interaction and shared purpose, with regular rituals to keep a sense of stability. If we must work by manual labor, it is more satisfying to work to benefit those around you than for increasingly worthless dollars. No smartphones or thinking machines allowed.
but how does that effect women?
We live in a winner-takes-all world. Either you are compounding success, or you are compounding failure. Middle-age is when all potential has been spent and where you are is essentially where you will be until you die. Some middle aged men are billionaires with access to nearly anything they could want. Others have seen only repeated failures, accelerated by an economy that doesn't reward anyone but the most nimble, intelligent, or sociopathic.
The Founders Guide to Suicide:
https://anthonydavidadams.substack.com/p/the-founders-guide-...
I wrote this about overcoming the suicidal urge, what I learned beating an “incurable” diagnosis without meds, and how it’s informed my coaching of some of the most successful unicorn founders in history.
Even before opening the article it made me think, am I middle aged man already? Never thought about it until today, I remember watching American Beauty before going to serve in military in my late teens thinking it's basically my father's age (though Spacey was at time of shooting 39-40 and my father was older), just now realizing I am at same age as Lester Burnham, married for 10-15 years with 2 kids.
I have less and less jobs "thanks" to AI, though I have my savings, which should maybe cover me already for the rest of my life, but even if they were going to wiped I don't see reason to kill myself over stupid money, it's just money. I had these ideas maybe as stupid teenager, but can't think of killing myself while having two kids, how would that help them or even me, what financial issues would I resolve by killing myself? I mean what's the worst scenario that can happen, ending homeless on street, where you can still enjoy life doing nothing.
Now since my income/jobs are dwindling I am thinking where to move with my career, though I wouldn't call it career since I don't desire some growth, but I would be perfectly fine with doing librarian (which seems like pretty laid back job with not so great salary, but enough to get by, another one to consider would be night watchman I guess or some museum supervisor) or whatever the least responsibility job you can find (cough American Beauty reference, cough[1]), in the worst case you can always find job in Lidl, I guess it is still better than being homeless on street and you can enjoy interaction with coworkers compared to working from home 10+ years. Heck I was even considering whether I could do some job where I would be contributing to wellbeing of other people like emergency services hotline (been doing something similar in past) to give your life extra meaning, but not really needing this, seems USAns are obssesed with this idea being defined by job, for me job is just a way to make enough money and it doesn't define me. I mean even in US can't you just move to some small place with low living expenses and find there whatever shitty job and just enjoy your life in your spare time without participating in rat race?
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJh5wdvdfVE
Btw. article says "Those aged 50 to 54 are at greatest risk of taking their own lives as charities warn deaths ‘remain stubbornly high’"
"There were also increases in suicides among pensioners, with the biggest rise among those aged 75 and older, while the rates among men under 45 fell slightly."
Which makes me think men under 45 are still not considered middle aged since they mention rates under 45 fell.
TLDR it seems if you are under 45 as many commenters here claiming they are 36, 39, 40, 44, you are still not middle aged according this article, though google AI overview tells me "Middle age for men generally starts around 40 to 45 years old, as defined by organizations like the National Institute on Aging."
Another pretty good advice for life, it will take only few minutes of your time, hard to disagree with anything said in the video:
Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen
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get a dog?
We all know what the problem is.
Men used to be men
Dear HN, please stop posts like this in making to the top page. This actually normalizes the idea of suicide even with people not thinking about it. I don’t remember the book but it has been discussed a lot in psychological aspects of these news articles influencing the behaviour in them.
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