Exactly. About my previous comment, even if you are a privileged young women living in a safe area, you still want your phone to talk/chat with your girlfriends. On average, young men spent much less time talking/chatting with friends on their phone.

I think we’re “lazy” and have no urge to nest and generally have a utilitarian sensibility.

Lazy in the sense that we only think of bare essentials for most things, especially something like jogging. We don’t want to create more work for ourselves by dirtying more clothes than necessary, accessorizing, etc. We also generally just care a lot less about fashion and how people perceive us. Probably because we hardly even get noticed compared to women. It’s not like people are gawking if we wear the wrong bra. Women are more self conscious and care more in general about how they’re perceived.

The apartment comes with bare walls. Inertia is bare walls.

My wife likes putting everything on display. Like if there’s any surface, her urge is to cover it with what I call knickknacks, trinkets, and probably a dozen pictures. For me, it’s all clutter. Collects dust, creating a chore. If there’s an open wall she wants to hang stuff on it. She likes a wall of 100 small pictures, I’d prefer 1 large framed art. To me her way makes me feel things are chaotic. My way makes her feel it’s clinical and uninviting. We’ve found a balance that works for both of us. But I think if I were to psychoanalyze it, it’s rooted in the same thing that makes women’s brains always running/worrying and not understanding what men mean when they say “nothing” when asked “what are you thinking about?”

> What is it that appeals so much to young men about minimalism?

It's hard to generalize, and I myself am probably atypical here, but I suspect that most young men have their own 'little homely touches'. They might be less likely to run out and buy curtains or hang up pictures but I've seen things like random sports stuff (team merch or equipment that hasn't seen use in ages), old bear cans, action figures, books, guns, guitars, and the occasional dead animal displayed (or at least constantly left out and in view).

You're probably seeing utilitarianism in young men more than minimalism, however they do look very similar. The minimalism throughout the home of (many) single men quite often orients around one "high spec item", like a TV, PC, workspace, exercise setup.

I think in contrast (most) young women's homes have more social signalling in them, homely touches, which has its own benefit equal to or most likely greater than minimalism.

I can say myself that I've always been minimalistic. My flat was bare bones because I treat the place mostly as a place to eat and sleep between spending most of my time outdoors or away from home. As soon as my girlfriend moved in a few years back the flat went from everything white and minimalistic to being colourful. I'm glad there is more colour to the place and that somebody with an eye for it has taken charge of it, but I know if I went back to being single again tommorow I'd go back to not having much around the place.

At least for me, housing wasn't exactly stable in my early 20s. Flaky methhead roommates. Lease terminations. Getting laid off from an hourly wage job while living paycheck to paycheck. I've got a life of great privilege now but it wasn't always like that. I had to move frequently and even straight live out of my car a few times. I intentionally owned nothing more than I could pack inside of an hour and fit in the backseat of a '94 Civic because I actually had to pack up my life and fit it in the backseat of a '94 Civic more than once.

I figured some of it was socialization - women are often socialized to be mindful of our own comfort and aware of our emotional nerds. Men are socialized to ignore comfort.

One thing that's been wonderful to see has been men online sharing their living spaces and being told to get a plant and make their spaces homey. Guys should be encouraged to care for themselves and be happy and comfortable in their homes, regardless of the presence of women. It's really nice to see men actually taking care of themselves instead of living in sad helpless little minimalist hovels.

People in my home country (Kenya) run long distances while being neither white nor male and even in the rain, without any gear.

Wait until you get rich. Then people will endless amounts of running gear to show-off their social status. And do really expect me to believe that local women go running in Nairobi without a mobile phone (at least for their safety)?

Let people tell you things. Telling them they don't yet qualify for a real opinion is demeaning. If they are wrong, then they are wrong, but they are still entitled to their perspective and experience.

I actually thought, while typing, that my point was probably irrelevant to Kenya specifically because of the local running culture there

What an absolute nonsense. My wife often goes running without any gear. At night. In the dark.

Know how often something bad happened? Never.

I find it a very strange assumption, especially given the fact that men are much more likely to become victims of aggression.

Thank you to share your story. Jesus, where do you live where that is possible? Are you rural?

The risks may be much higher for women, but in most places the base rate is still very low. "Assaulted by a stranger on the street" is actually fairly low in the risks for almost anyone: the vast majority of assaults, especially sexual assaults, are perpetrated by someone the victim knows.

(This also doesn't mean that such concerns are irrational, just that the risks are not so high that you should expect every woman going out for a run in the dark is eventually going to be assaulted)

reminds me of the OSRS wilderness. I've encountered so many people who are afraid to even step foot in there for any reason.

    > is actually fairly low in the risks for almost anyone: the vast majority of assaults, especially sexual assaults, are perpetrated by someone the victim knows.

I need to troll here: You mispelled actually. It should be "ackchyually". Please read "moar" about the meme here[1]. I'm not here to start gender wars, but your response is incredibly tone deaf to the world that women experience in rich, middle class, and developing countries. I keep seeing this bullshit on HN where a comfortable dude has something to say about how women's fear is "irrational". No, that is not has the human brain works regarding safety. It is irrationally afraid. That is how we survive -- both men and women.

[1] https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ackchyually-actually-guy

You're claiming a lot of things I didn't say and in fact I explicitly called out in my post that I was not saying.

In the EU. Provincial capital. 5 minute walk from the city centre.

Can you acknowledge that many women in similar circumstances do not enjoy the same levels of personal safety?

So - not actually in the dark. Street lights exist for your area.

If that's the bit that you're jumping on, there are people here in Western Australia (myself included) that are happy to run at night under a full moon with no carried lights or artificial street lights on beaches and along roads and tracks that are known.

Once your eyes adapt the full moon is easily bright enough to illuminate the ground.

Your wife runs in the dark without a light?

I'm really curious why these traits specifically. I suppose I get why women feel threatened just existing outside of locked doors and walls, but you rattled off a very long list of otherwise not true things. I'm not young, not white, run through poor neighborhoods with high crime, usually extremely early hours before the sun is up, sometimes in the rain. I still almost always only have shorts, socks, and shoes. A shirt half the year. What is the perceived benefit to more gear?

It's not like I've never suffered for it, for whatever that's worth. I turned an ankle at about the worst imaginable place a few years back and had to limp home nearly ten miles, which took half the day. Definitely having a phone with me would have made that more convenient, but I lived, it's still only half a day, and I've now got an amusing story to tell alongside all the times I've had to shit on the sidewalk in front of a building in downtown Dallas because the world refuses to have usable toilets anywhere outside of daytime business hours. I've broken my hand once on a run, but you don't need a hand to keep running.

I've also had a phone and it didn't help. I faceplanted hill bombing on a longboard a few years back and it turns out no rideshare driver will let you into their car when you're covered in blood, so I had to take my swollen shut eye, hanging limp separated arm, and go back home on the board and drive myself to the ER in my own car.

I feel like this kind of goes back to the entire point of the article. Like the guy who started this thread, I was a child of the 80s with a teen mom who put basically no restrictions on me and let me do anything, so I was walking around the neighborhood at 1 AM in 1st grade, riding my bike every weekend to the LA County public library 15 miles away when I was 8, going to skid row to hand out cash to homeless people when I got a car at 16. I capsized a canoe in the middle of Lake Arrowhead my freshman year of high school and had to swim back to shore dragging a boat behind me, which took over an hour. I got assaulted by a crazy dude living under a table on a pedestrian bridge skateboarding past him early in the morning, and I won the fight but he burned the hell out of my eye throwing hot sauce at me of all things. I've had my house flood. I've had my car smashed by a city dump truck while it was parked. I've had 9 orthopedic surgeries since turning 35 and my lumbar spine is now one solid bone held in place by screws and rods. I've been divorced twice. I've survived combat. I'm not afraid of bad things happening to me because they already happened and I ended up fine. This also gets at the other point already raised that, though women certainly seem to feel more threatened by the world, men are more likely to experience violence, injury, and early death because men take more risks.

I will, of course, meet a fate I can't overcome at some point. I'm going to die and there will likely be at least one thing I could have done differently that might have put that off by anywhere from a few minutes to a few decades. Maybe at the minute of death I'll even regret that. But I doubt it. I've been extremely close a few times and I was at peace with the idea. It has to happen eventually. I've still enjoyed most of the time I've had and intend to continue doing that. I've seen the lives of the extremely scared and it doesn't seem like they're doing any better than me.

    > I'm really curious why these traits specifically. I suppose I get why women feel threatened just existing outside of locked doors and walls, but you rattled off a very long list of otherwise not true things. I'm not young, not white, run through poor neighborhoods with high crime, usually extremely early hours before the sun is up, sometimes in the rain. I still almost always only have shorts, socks, and shoes. A shirt half the year.

Jeez, tell me you are a man without telling me that you are a man. Switch genders: Would you ever write this post? I doubt it.

These guys hyper-rationalize their own lives to feel secure in the decisions they make and how they feel about the world. This instills a fear of anything that doesn't fit with their world model, i.e. practicing empathy is painful and risky.

They paradoxically feel like very "tolerant" people because they disagree with so much, so the few things about the world and others they don't accept feels like a lot of work to sit with without constant judgement or disapproval, and often this leads to subtle manipulation if they don't feel comfortable enough. Even then, a lot of what they actually say they "accept" is just self-serving, e.g. authority figures, attempted relationships, status quo, etc.

In another paradox, the world becomes more confusing and complicated for them because eventually nothing truly makes sense, if we confidently try to live an oversimplified version of the actually complex and messy universe we are faced with. There's a feedback loop here that amplifies the situation to the point of disconnecting from reality.

so you're a young white male - black men running are more likely to need to prove they are't running to or away, but for fun. Gear signals "runner" vs "arrest me". Ymmv on this one these days but the black guys running in my area were always careful to look the part.

in a safe location Fairly obvious. Phones at a minimum. Pepper spray too sometimes. Safe varies by gender. I ran through a heavily monitored area (data centers and government offices at 5 am) near a police station and still had a car turn and slow to follow me for a bit until I found a lit shopping are with people.

Running short distances Longer distances need water, electrolytes, and a phone. A bit of moleskin for blisters and a pack of tissues is also useful. If you're regularly doing 2-3 hours running without water, I would maybe worry about your kidneys.

in good weather A little rain isn't bad weather. If you are half naked running in the snow, I am going to assume you are on drugs. "Good weather" is also relative to running. If you are running in high humidity or heat, you need a hat, a shirt or sunblock, water, electrolytes.

During daylight hours only

You know folks running in the dark without a headlamp or reflective vest?