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The breaking of social covenant and the rise of selfish societies
Recently in the news, Red Lobster is reporting an 11 million dollar loss, which is forcing the company to close many restaurants and possible file for chapter 11. The problem? Their '$20 all you can eat shrimp' deal was too good. Some anecdotal evidence indicates that large tables would order one or two orders of the never-ending deal, causing huge losses as large parties would share a single plate for $20, causing significant restaurant losses.
In the past few years, NYC has seen significant increases in retail theft, with stores facing many millions of dollar losses, with the estimate of retail theft being up to 4.4 billion dollars for the state alone. The cost of thefts cause a cyclical cycle, it forces stores to raise prices to cover the loss of the theft, which in turn prices people out of purchasing goods, which again raises theft. So far, the plans the governor has been trying to put into place seems to have done little to curtail any theft.
A 2024 jobs report shows a massive shortage of manufacturing labor, with 770,000 manufacturing jobs open. Labor participation has not recovered from the COVID crisis, with participation at 63.3% just before corvid and around 62.5% from the most recent report. Labor participation was highest before the 2008 housing crisis during the Bush admin around 67%. 7.5 million men have dropped out of America's workforce, meaning that they are not job seeking and therefore wouldn't be tracked as part of unemployment in FRED data.
There's a lot of words spilled on the internet on 'high trust societies'. Places like Japan where a lost item will be much more likely returned to its owner than, say, Detroit. Or rural America, where people will pay money at an unattended farm stand for fresh fruits and/or vegetables. However, trust doesn't fully cover what's going on in the west. /u/johnfabian's post is not about trust, but rather the breaking down of the covenant between constituents and their governments that keep a society basically functions. These social functions are much more simple than trust. It's about not running a red light, not driving the wrong way down a highway, or waiting in line for a train rather than trying to crowd on regardless of capacity.
Western society flourishing was largely predicated on this tacit understood social covenant: on an individual level, each person does their best to contribute through labor - be it stocking shelves to software development to entrepreneurship. In turn, the government upholds the status quo and optimizes legislation for stability and prosperity for the working class.
However in recent times this has changed. I'm not sure if the western governments decided they can have it's cake and eat it, too, or that the only way to perpetuate power is finding a new voter base, but the recent focus on marginalized groups has significantly eroded the trust away from indigenous constituents. It doesn't take a genius to tell that demographic groups are being treated, litigated, and policed based off of completely different rule books, and this type of treatment always creates division and resentment. The covenant between government and the constituencies broke, which changed the payoff matrix. As governments pick and choose which demographics to control, people become more selfish, as the ability to create value from freer markets diminish.
This is why 'selfish societies' is a better term than 'low trust' societies. As much as people love to yell at corporations for perusing short term gains, individuals pursue selfish gains at the cost of others even more as shown from my examples alone. Trust does not fully explain how people behave in the aforementioned examples, but selfishness does. Low male employment, antiwork, and the rise of NEET-dom has nothing to do with trust, but selfishness adequately describes the motivations for the ideological positions they hold. Obesity isn't a trust issue, it's a selfish issue, where people would rather eat themselves into oblivion instead of finding a healthy balance and self restraint. Even the declining birthrate is a result of selfishness; people would prefer to have the increased income and enjoyment of consequence-free fornication instead of laying an effective and positive groundwork for future generations.
The question, then, is it possible for a government to regain the respect of its constituents, and can the people understand that there needs to be some amount of selflessness to create an environment to nurture the next generation?
Does this also apply to women for embracing frivolous promiscuity (far more than men as statistics on how many men vs. women are sexless in a given year, partner numbers, propensity for infidelity, etc. show) and antagonistic notions of "equality", or is it only men who are expected to selflessly hold up the world like Atlas?
And the CEOs who intentionally manufacture the cheapest, unhealthiest food possible that they've hired organic chemists to make as addictive as possible and market it in the most deceptive and manipulative ways possible that intentionally target the dumbest and most vulnerable people, so they can later sell them subscriptions in pill form to their own endocrine system? Selfish, or just the "freer markets" you prefer?
Can you provide some support for these claims. As far as I can tell, every single one of these is wrong.
AFAIK this statistic was from the GSS in 2018. The statistic in 2021 shows the reverse.
I just pulled the GSS data for 2022 (attached). I'm not sure how I can squint and that data draw your conclusions. Of the people who actually answered, 752 were male and 826 were female.
I'm struggling to squint at this data and draw your conclusions.
source
Of the 7 age buckets they look at, women only cheat more than men in one (18 to 29 years old), and only by 1% (10% of men vs 11% of women). Every other age bucket has a larger gap in the opposite direction.
TL;DR I looked at the statistics you asked me to, but they don't support your thesis.
/images/17161532637987657.webp
The very first graph on the page you linked yourself shows male sexlessness being a decent amount above female sexlessness in almost every year since 1989, other than a small slice at the end that you have chosen to exclusively focus on as a lame "gotcha". What in your original post indicates that you were only judging people's behavior past the year 2021 or so? This problem only started then? If we're only talking about a problem that's barely lasted/evolved for not even 3 years, then obviously it's not a particularly big deal (or at least not nearly as much as you're making it out to be), since it could just be complete statistical noise after all, and there's not much reason for us to even be talking about or for you to have posted about it (or at least not with the apparent seriousness you did). And if all of those prior years of greater female promiscuity (which I highly doubt have ended at all, but I'm not going to play online citation duel over it when I know the social sciences have been almost entirely broken and malevolent post-Floyd anyway) get a pass, then I guess all of the years of alleged selfish NEETdom and low employment that men have supposedly engaged in also get a similar pass, right?
Even if I pretend not to know that women obviously lie out their ass about this subject way more than men (as anyone who has ever been even tangentially aware of the full-court presses of PR manipulation bridal parties will engage in after wild bachelorette parties, as just one example, can attest to), this still means we're allowed to call out young women for their selfishness in this area right?
Or how about one clear demonstration of promiscuity that no manipulated data could even try to refute: the percentage of people (particularly younger and more attractive ones of course) in each gender who are featured publicly half-naked online? Obviously there are far more women (including relatively "normal" ones with "regular" lives: nurses, secretaries, retail workers, average college students, etc.) who have curated generous galleries of softcore (or more) pornography of themselves (including on relatively mainstream platforms such as Instagram and TikTok) online than men. (Source: Any casual perusal of online media-sharing platforms.) (And this isn't even getting into what they often quite readily send out semi-privately on platforms like Snapchat either.) Are these women being selfish with that behavior by subverting society's long-term sexual norms that have guaranteed its stability throughout history for some temporary dopamine hits of attention? Can we say it's a greater indication of selfishness on behalf of the female gender that they do it far more often than men? Or...?
Instead of trying to torture the truth (that women, particularly of course young and attractive ones in any given generation, are obviously responsible, and probably more responsible than men at least within the past 10-20 years, for significantly contributing to the breakdown of traditional familial/sexual mores) with cherry-picking "Akshually you forgot to check this random survey every year which suggests recently that a long-standing trend for decades may have mildly reversed in the past 2-3 years." stat citation-mining gotchas, just answer the core question: Are women to be held account for their selfishness in your formulation or not? Or just men? And if they are, then why only target men in your original post? You don't think women's contributions to a greater culture of selfishness are worth highlighting or what?
Because if your solution to a "culture of selfishness" is that men (and by that I mean basically only White and some Asian men, as of course based on their average level of social/economic development throughout history, and the general culture of low expectations that has evolved in response, most men of the darker races clearly aren't going to be held to much account by anybody, much less by themselves in most cases) need to quit worrying about/not cooperating with a system that's obviously biased against them and simply get back to thanklessly slaving so that they can simultaneously be attacked for being the core problem of society by that same society that incessantly demands their devoted labor then, quite frankly, you can stuff it.
PS: If you wanna talk stats, how about the fact that women's labor force participation rate is below men's overall almost entirely across the board (with, from what I'm seeing, like one or two statistical noise exceptions where they're favored in certain very young age groups by a percentage point or so), including again almost all age groups (even younger ones who would presumably have very little chance of being part of the shrinking residual demographic of purely domestically-bound homemakers), despite the fact that they've been almost entirely unmoored from any obligations to eschew independent employment in favor of strict domesticity?
https://www.bls.gov/emp/tables/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm
So again, why only call out men specifically when the main alleged problem with men that you highlighted is literally worse among women? Simple and exactly as I stated in my view: You think of men as slaves who need to get back to work, even if they're not receiving any of the benefits they're supposed to from it anymore. Meanwhile women are the anointed ones who society exists to serve, not be served by, so that they are more guilty is irrelevant, because they are incapable of actually being guilty in the first place.
If you're so worried about supposed male selfishness, consider this perspective: It is actually your selfishness in not giving a shit if these men receive any sort of meaningful compensation or esteem for keeping the ship afloat that is causing the alleged problem of selfishness on their end that you're perceiving. Fix yourself and work to fix society, and you will find a lot of eager men who are more than happy to selflessly tire on behalf of an actually functional, honorable, and reasonable society, same as they literally have all throughout history. Until then, why would you expect them to rush to perform emergency surgery on a bloated corpse when people like you are swarming around additionally and might as well be actively stabbing it and the remaining few men who are trying to help in the face?
Two things:
First, Figure 1 is the share of under 35s who have not had sex in the last year. Figure 2 is the same, but only samples from people have have never been married, which is more relevant and shows no meaningful gap.
Second, you're responding to
When you're replying to a discussion about recent trends like antiwork, NEET-dom, shoplifting, and Red Lobster closures, I don't think it's unreasonable to assume the trends you're choosing to bring up are on a similar timeline.
I'm not condemning men. I'm saying you're, at best, massively exaggerating your own complaints about women.
You claimed the statistics supported you. Now that they don't you're claiming the statistics aren't accurate. Why did you claim they supported you then?
I don't think it's appropriate to focus on a 1% difference in one age bucket and ignore the far larger differences in every other bucket that point in the opposite direction. Doing this falsely represents reality in an effort to push a particular narrative.
I agree there are more women actresses/subjects in pornography.
This is completely irrelevant to my point, which is that the statistics your post claimed supported your position do not, in fact, support your position.
I think that's a pretty reductive explanation. There is greater demand for pornography featuring women, and women respond to that. I don't personally think that makes women "more selfish", any more than men making more money than women makes them "more greedy". But these words are poorly defined enough that I'm not going to argue there is much objectivity here.
I've made one post apart from this one, which pointed out the statistics did not show what you claimed they showed. That's not targeting men.
You seem to think I'm some sort of white-knight SJW. I'm not. I've criticized women before. I've criticized progressive policies before (e.g. affirmative action, believe all women, lived experiences, etc.).
I tend not to do it here, because that stuff is in the water supply here.
It's rather grating that you insist that I'm being unfair to men when I've said nothing negative about men this entire conversation.
I also haven't agreed with the "culture of selfishness" thesis either, let alone claimed it needs solving or given a solution.
Again, I've made the very simple point that the stats that you cited don't support the thesis that you made. If you'd like to defend the other two statistics that you claimed support you, you're welcome to.
Please stop putting words in my mouth. Please stop saying I'm blaming men for anything.
I'll start with this:
From your original post:
You specifically chose to qualify this with "male", despite the fact that, as I pointed out with some actually-less-likely-to-be-manipulated (since they're of an economic nature and collected by the government, which has an incentive to know the productivity patterns of its prole cattle) statistics (which I love how you ignored), the problem with low employment and labor non-participation is actually worse among women.
Why "male"? Why not "black"? They're actually far less likely to be employed (unlike men, who as I showed actually aren't) than people of other comparable demographics. Let's say I made your OP, but instead I put "low Indian employment", and then as it turns Indians actually have a higher than average level of employment among the races (which may well be true). Would it make sense to you if I were flabbergasted that you thought I was being anti-Indian? Would it make sense for me to post "Please stop saying I'm blaming Indians for anything."?
You still haven't answered the fundamental question in all of your pointless, evasive verbiage: Why male? Why is male labor non-participation specifically the issue we're worried about here? Why not overall, or again female?
About statistics in regards to women, let me just say this:
You seem to have confused me for only talking about OnlyFans (which isn't a terrible statistical signal actually as it's mostly amateurs and of course women dominate it) or Bang Bros here. Let me rephrase: For a not insignificant portion of women (at least 5%, probably closer to 20% in some demographics, and obviously again going vastly up with lower age in particular and greater attractiveness), the average picture they put online of themselves is softcore pornography (if not just because it features their usual attire, which is softcore pornography attire, though of course most of them in that category choose to intentionally pose and present themselves in additional lustful ways as well). Meanwhile the percentage of men for whom this is true is well below 1.
There is a whole word just for describing the phenomenon of how women are excessively catered to by men without being expected to provide essentially anything in return: "simp". (Yes it is sometimes also applied to women, but not with nearly the same frequency/earnestness/intensity.) There is, as far as I know, no similar word with reversed gender connotations in such prolific use.
Every single one of these facts, in regards to which gender is more promiscuous and has contributed more to the breakdown of sexual norms and which gender is more selfish and expects to receive more from others for less in return from them, is a far stronger statistical signal than any cherry-picked survey stat you can post. It all comes down to a variation of the same old question: "Who do you trust: your lying eyes or our 'data'?"
They do support me, as again your own links show, other than again a small slice of the tip of the modern wokeist spear that you've chosen to focus on exclusively for some reason.
Why don't I just roll over like a puppy dog for a few years from some random graph you posted that apparently has the right figures? Let's take the cheating one for example. This can be blown up easily by asking some simple questions:
Do the women who responded considered the massive amount of offline and online thirst-trapping many of them must do (given again how much of it exists overall) "cheating"?
Do their boyfriends/husbands?
Do their boyfriends/husbands even know the full extent of it (in an age of Snapchat and plenty of other ways of hiding it)? And how pressured do they feel because of modern matriarchal norms not to contest it at all even though they would really like their girlfriend/wife to put some clothes on?
This is just one issue that makes the simplistic consideration you're engaging in wholly untenable if you're trying to be intellectually honest. Like I said, you can post as many cherry-picked surveys as you want: No amount of data trumps reality.
I mean, I could respond to you in a Reddit drone fashion by going on a dive and posting my own cherry-picked link dump, but surely we're all aware enough here of Scott's writings on metascience to understand that a graph is not a substitute for using your brain and empirical faculties, right?
But yes, I trust recent statistics less and less, as social scientists have increasingly openly declared war on the truth in favor of what's ideologically compatible with their brainwashing. So also yes when I say that statistics support my position, I'm not including any given random link from 2022 or whatever.
If you don't want people to assume malicious implications behind your words, then please stop being so unfair and biased.
You've insisted you're some great known critic of women here, but in our entire conversation that is supposedly (from your perspective) just about a neutral examination of modern selfishness, you have yet to even entertain applying the word to any common female behavior (or any female at all in fact) once. So spare me the disinterested observer pleading please because it is obvious hogwash.
If you want to have a conversation about selfishness as a trend, then include the other half of the population. Otherwise you obviously don't want to have a real conversation.
I am not @SomethingMusic
Yeah, my bad. I didn't check properly and just assumed with you jumping in on behalf of a somewhat older original post you were the OP.
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