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Why Should I Care?
I recently greatly enjoyed Naraburns' post on the life of Dylan, so I thought I would give back by putting together my thoughts as someone that empathizes greatly with Dylan, and would probably be picking pineapples right next to him if I didn't happen to be born with some aptitude for shape rotation. To provide some context, I've been in a bit of a malaise for the last few days, having had a rough week at work, and I get into a spiral of fantasizing about quitting my job when the thought hits me - why, exactly, do I even care about the job? Why do I actually care about contributing to society?
As any good economist knows, people at scale generally do what they're incentivized to do. Yet from the point of view of a young man it's increasingly harder to get a bite out of carrots historically used to incentivize men to act pro-socially, while simultaneously most of the sticks and fences previously used to corral people's worst impulses have disintegrated. Viewed from a sufficiently cynical lens, it becomes more and more rational from a self-interest perspective to drop out of the system and become a disaffected bum, and indeed this does seem to be reflected in the male labor force participation rate.
The elephant in the room is, of course, dating discourse. It is absolutely true and subject to much discussion amongst these types of circles that relationship formation and TFR is dropping off a cliff in almost all countries on the planet. Everyone has their own hot take as to what's going wrong and who's at fault; personally, I just think it comes down to incentives.
Men no longer need women for sexual gratification [when HD video porn exists] or domestic labor [when household appliances exist], women no longer need men for physical or economic security [when careers and the state will provide] and there's significantly less status or social pressure for either gender to get into and stay in relationships early, unless you run in religious or traditional circles. It's a similar story for having children; most people, if asked, will at least nominally say that they want children, yet revealed preference is for global TFR collapse. In agrarian societies having children isn't a great burden relatively and they become useful quite quickly, whereas in modern societies having child(ren) will result in significant changes to your lifestyle, and impose notable financial burden [less than what most PMC's might think, but certainty an extant one] for at least twenty years for a very uncertain return; it's a hard sell to the modal person to make sacrifices to their quality of life and economic stability for the sake of very expensive pets [from an economic perspective].
As a result, polarization between the sexes is at an all-time high as a result as neither sex really needs the other, and left to their own devices the observed tendency is that they mostly end up self-segregating. For men that do still want a relationship and marriage, this means it's the hardest it's ever been; in-person ways for singles to meet have all but disappeared, dating apps are perhaps the most demonic application of technology ever invented, and the very high amount of options that most women now hold [including that to eschew dating altogether] heavily disincentivizing making any sort of commitment [to be clear, almost all men would and do act in similar ways given the same breadth of options as well].
I don't agree with the blackpillers, in the sense that I think the majority of people could eventually find a partner if they put in enough effort [which might be an incredible amount depending on the starting point!]. However, it is true that we went from a society where the standard life script ended up with everyone except for a few oddballs partnered up, to one where the standard life script results in most men ending up alone unless they spend an inordinate amount of time and effort on dating or are exceptionally [hot/rich/charismatic/lucky] in some way. Most people really just go with the flow, and hence increasingly more people end up alone.
Even for those who do manage to summit the mountain, the returns on entering into a relationship and marriage seem to be diminished for most men. It's likely to be expensive financially [I'm not convinced by Caplan-style arguments that relationships save you money, the most expensive budget items like housing, childcare and healthcare are largely rivalrous or wouldn't otherwise exist, and it's reasonably well studied that relationships where the woman makes more money suffer] and of course there's little to really secure commitment or incentivize sticking it out if something goes wrong; getting divorced is one of the easiest ways to have your life ruined, after all.
At the end of the day, modern relationship formation is less about the practical benefits as was the case for almost all of human history, and almost entirely about self-esteem and self-actualization; hence the rise of incels [who are bereft of the validation of being desired, not the literal act of sex] and romantasy fiction. How much does it validate me that I have a high status / hot / rich partner willing to have sex and be seen in public with me? Have I now truly found my soulmate, the ideal parent for my children? This is, of course, an impossible standard to meet for the vast majority of people and relationships and hence most people who think this way end up dissatisfied and unhappy - and yet without the illusion of self-actualization what else is there really to gain bonding yourself to someone else with a bond that is not a bond?
With all is said and done, as the mountain grows ever-harder to summit and the rewards for reaching the peak become ever-increasingly a mirage, I think it's an increasingly rational choice for many people to decide not to climb and to try and find contentment at the bottom. That's certainly how I've been feeling lately, at the very least.
This brings me to my next point, where if a first world man decides that they no longer want to conquer the mountain, there's not really much else that buying into modern capitalism can offer them in many cases. It is of course a stereotype that men are happy living in squalor, and that women be shopping, but I've found it to be remarkably accurate; women make up something like 70% to 80% of consumer spending, and in general it's motivation to be a provider that drives many men to work as hard as they can, most of whom otherwise are pretty happy living with a mattress and WiFi.
If one's lost the motivation or opportunity to provide, suddenly most of what remains expensive in modern abundant society doesn't really matter; you don't have to spend money on up-keeping a lifestyle and status symbols to attract a mate, and you no longer need to spend most of your life paying off a house in the best school district you can afford to keep the wife happy and the child as advantaged as possible.
Similarly, the stick of impoverishment is no real threat in any rich welfare state; He who does not work, neither shall he eat is now comically false, food [and non-housing living expenses in general] are pretty trivial to cover if you're smart/frugal about it and if you're not the gibs will probably cover them for you anyways. Housing is a real problem that's been exacerbated near-universally across the world, but if you no longer need to provide for a family or make a lot of money there's still plenty of ways to keep a roof over your head without working too hard; living out of a van, moving to somewhere where the jobs aren't great but living is cheap, or the good old solution of failing to launch.
Anecdotally, my college friend group includes a guy who dropped out to live with his parents and do gig work and a high-powered lawyer who inherited a few million, and despite their significantly different socioeconomic classes still live materially similar lives and are still good friends. Sure, the lawyer can afford to live in a massive house, fly business and collect a bunch of expensive trinkets, but when it comes down to it neither of them worry about their basic needs, and spend most of their leisure time doing the same things; working out, playing the same video games, watching the same tv/movies/anime, scrolling too much on social media and going traveling to similar places from time from time.
Of course being wealthier and more powerful gives you more optionality in the face of adversity, and that's great if you're born into wealth or are exceptional/lucky human capital, but honestly the vast majority of people are never going to have enough power or money to matter if anything really goes wrong with their life, even if they spend their entire lives grinding and buying into the system. "Making it" to middle manager at a big firm or owning a small business doesn't save you from targeted lawfare, developing late-stage cancer where the experimental treatment is going to cost a few million out of pocket, or your home burning down and getting denied by insurance. And of course, no amount of money can save you from the true black swans e.g unaligned superintelligence, gain of function^2 electric boogaloo or nuclear war - how many young people in the first world really believe that they'll be taking money out of their retirement fund and living life as normal in 2080?.
So if the dating market is FUBAR and money has questionable marginal utility, what else is left to encourage men to work hard? Well, people will think you're a loser and low status if you don't work or you work a shitty job, maybe that will work? That's true, and historically granting young man status when they do pro-social things has been a pretty effective motivator.
Yet now we live in a highly globalized society for better or worse. No matter how far you are up your chosen totem poles, status has gone global; it's easy to look up, see who's still above you and feel bad about yourself. Chad is probably just a twitter DM away, in fact! Being unemployed or a gig worker might be low status, but even "good" jobs don't feel much higher status either; it's hard to feel the average software engineer or electrician job is particularly high status when constantly inundated with people who are orders of magnitude more successful. To me, it feels like the endgame is SoKo or China; competition for "high status" becomes more and more ludicrous and absurd, and everyone else sits on the sidelines resigned to feeling like a loser even if their lives are materially still great.
Faced with such competitiveness, you can either throw yourself into the maw and try and win an winnable game, or decide to tap out of the game altogether. Sure, there will always be those with immense will to power that will maximize for status, to strive for the stars and win at at all costs, but realistically most people don't have such strength of will. If the only options are play and lose and not play at all, it increasingly feels like the best play is to just drop out of striving for status altogether; it helps if you're no longer invested in dating or careerism, the arenas where status is most instrumental...
This piece ended up being significantly longer than I intended, and really I don't expect any sympathy nor do I have any solutions [much less politically viable and moral ones] to what I see as a deeply society-wide malaise. I have a deep respect for the incredibly autistic open-source emulator developer, the Japanese master sushi chef, and the Amish craftsman, those who still Care about their crafts in the truest sense of the word. Yet one cannot choose to win the lottery of fascinations, one cannot choose to be born into a high-trust society, and one cannot choose to have faith when it does not exist.
At the end of the day, it's hard to argue it's not a triumph of society that the modal first worlder spends most of their time wallowing in comfort and engaging in zero-sum status struggles in a world where so many still suffer. Yet what is great can easily be lost, and modernity as it exists today cannot survive without the buy-in of young men. Maybe it doesn't matter, that in the end us dysgenic neurotics will end up being weeded out of the gene pool, and that future populations will be able to break out of this local minima and take over the world. Perhaps the prayers for the machine god to deliver us salvation will come true and the priests shall finally immanentize the eschaton so that none of this matters.
In some ways it feels like to me that the barbarians are banging on the gates while nobody else notices or cares, as everyone else seems to be whiling away the hours eating bread and going to the circus. But well, if nobody else is manning the walls either, why should I be the one who cares?
I'm really liking the discussion here but I'm going to call this point out.
Its true on the face of it. Society is set up so no woman need be entirely reliant on any particular man.
But its really just because they can outsource the duties normally handled by a spouse to other specialized MEN in their community, as needed. Men can be hired on a gig basis.
If she's physically threatened, she calls the police. Who are mostly male.
If there's a natural disaster, fire, earthquake, tornado, hurricane, flood, avalanche, etc. etc., the first responders/rescuers are largely male. DITTO for the guys rebuilding infrastructure in the aftermath, and who will be shipping emergency supplies in.
If she needs something at her abode fixed, her car repaired, heavy furniture moved... SAME THING. It'll be a man doing it.
And for economic security, well, the various programs that allow women to have shelters, welfare, food stamps, and other support, even if they're a unmarried, drug addicted, unemployed mother... are largely paid for on the back of taxes extracted from other men.
Its male labor all the way down. No, not every male, or maybe not even a majority, but the only reason women can even afford to express open spite towards male behavior is because men have built the prerequisite conditions for them to do so safely.
Its been shunted into the background somewhat, but oh boy do women still ABSOLUTELY NEED MEN to enjoy any standard of living and and ongoing safety from most physical dangers.
Men created and maintain the internet, too, and various apps, and that's now the preferred vector for women to complain about how useless and ugly men are. This is a supreme, SUPREME irony. Google "Chopped Man Epidemic" for a vantablackpill. Women who couldn't manage to set up a basic LAN are tearing into the exact type of men who make it possible for them to publish this stuff to the masses in the first place.
The current delusion (I will call it what it is) shared by many women that because they can work a job and provide for their own independent living means they don't need men at all is the symptom and somewhat the cause of the current gender discourse. And trying to point this out is very much taboo in polite society.
In short, I'm actually pondering whether we should organize any and all single men with decent-paying jobs into a unified income tax strike. Just refuse to pay taxes and see how society reacts to this simple act of peaceful rebellion. If men aren't needed, if women are capable of getting along without them, then things should putter along okay anyway.
What is the objective of this male general strike? What’s in it for the men, just teaching some women who making annoying videos a lesson? Why would any man who’s a productive member of society rally behind this?
That benefits men too! The time when the average man needed to farm the land, build a house and fix most things he owned himself is over. Men are just as reliant on the collective labour of society as women. Any blue or white collar male worker needs the police, firefighters, agricultural workers etc just as much as any woman, and can count on disability and unemployment benefits if things go poorly (maybe less so in the US, but that’s another issue).
And it’s not like women don’t do any “essential” work. The healthcare system would fall apart without the majority female nurses and staff. Childcare? Education? Who does the majority of the work when it comes to household and raising kids? Fighting over which is more “essential” is pointless.
You’re just doing the same old identity politics as the feminists you’re complaining about, just flipped.
To keep more of our money, I'd say.
Any other effects would be completely incidental. If society isn't offering any net benefits in exchange for the money paid into it, then it is quite morally defensible to stop paying in.
That was like 30% of the justifications put forth in the Declaration of Independence.
Why would any man want to continue to support a productive society that treats him like an expendable worker bee and doesn't even guarantee that he'll at least have the CHANCE to pass on his genes?
That's what the OP is getting at, directly. What's the point? Why stand by and be exploited?
There's a question their net contributions, clearly. Division of labor is good. But someone who is putting in more than they're getting out has direct reasons to question the arrangment.
Anybody who says "we don't need firefighters, we can fight our own fires!" and/or denigrates the role of firefighters is being stupid and discriminatory.
But anyone who says "we don't need men, we can take care of ourselves" is implicitly saying "we don't need firefighters, solders, builders, police officers, etc. etc. etc."
Its an even more fundamentally delusional worldview.
And it should be acceptable to call that out, no?
Yes.
So why is it so easy/reflexive to attack when men do it, but its impossible to find anyone serious suggesting that maybe women should lower their expectations a bit.
You’re American I believe, so fair enough your social services are inefficient and terrible (although you pay less taxes and earn a lot more than us Europeans), but that’s completely unrelated to gender.
This is clearly a personal grievance. All I can say is, you’re sitting inside watching content designed to make you angry, with the goal of hooking you on a corporation’s algorithmic content feed and selling your attention to the highest bidder. It’s not real.
It’s absolutely true that being plugged into the globalised online rat race is hopeless and depressing, so switch it off. Focus on your local community, your niche interests, and you’ll find people that value you for who you are. Join a commune or go pick fruits if you have to.
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I did, and 100% of the links are videos. I tried watching one of the less-terrible-looking videos, and it was still terrible; it started with a "preview" reel that was clearly just there to inculcate feelings of "WTF is going on" in order to maximise watchtime.
Could you summarise for people who don't feel like dipping their brains in the
brain-hackingengagement-optimisation industry?There's some largish subset of Gen-Z women who are claiming that in their daily lives, they almost never see 'hot' men out and about, and the vast majority of the men they do see are hopelessly ugly, don't take care of themselves, and are just horribly unattractive, meanwhile they also claim that most of the women they see are gorgeous, well-put-together, and otherwise "hot" and thus deserve better partners than they've got.
"Chopped" is apparently slang for "rough-looking."
And they further suggest that this is why men are lonely and undateable, since they aren't doing any interesting hobbies, aren't putting effort into dressing well or taking care of their appearance, and are generally "failing" to do the things that would make them attractive to women. And the implicit point in all of this is that the woman speaking is in fact hot and desirable and thus entitled to be as selective as she wants.
The reason its only videos is because that's how Gen Z communicates, which is why this might escape the notice of the older generations.
And of course, the added irony that this is taking place during "Men's Mental Health Month."
If this is a TikTok/ Twitter/ Insta thing, have you considered that the algorithmic video influencer mechanic is also what brought us mukbang, cinnamon challenges, contour makeup, Lil Tay, faking your own death for clout, etc. etc.?
The bad guy in a pro wrestling match is not actually trying to kill anybody with a folding chair, the monster truck with the teeth decals is not actually trying to eat the cars. The crazy infuriating shit influencers say (or their followers parrot) is not actually representative of what sane people act on in their personal lives.
Of course not.
I contend, however, that fewer people in the younger generation meet that definition of "sane people." Particularly young women.
Its becoming more common because people are becoming less sane.
This is a completely compatible set of views, supported by the evidence.
Because more of them are exposed to exactly this sort of ragebait and manipulation, constantly.
The internet isn't real life, but its correlating with something.
Anyway, here's a tiktok video with over 600k likes and 8000 comments where a woman breaks down in tears b/c a man she considers ugly gave her unwanted attention. (read: asked her on a date)
Is it a lie? MAYBE! But a lot of people believed it and completely support her position anyway!
Here's one with 367k likes and 64k comments claiming MEN are the ones not putting in enough effort into their appearance and there's just not enough hot men out there.
Ragebait? Could be, but a lot of women happily gobbling it up and affirming it. There's a comment with 64k likes claiming "I see a decent-looking man once a week."
Is it true? Do the people liking the comment BELIEVE it is true?
You tell me what one should make of this.
You are basing your worldview on random ragebait TikTok videos, a platform where the #peeyourpantschallenge had over four million views. Please, I implore you, talk to real people instead of doomscrolling dumb online discourse.
It’s absolutely true that most men put way less effort into their appearance than women. Like, c’mon. If you don’t believe this, tell me your skincare routine, how many hair products you own, and how long it takes you to get ready in the morning.
But anyway, that should be an advantage for you. Getting a nice haircut, moisturising regularly and buying a few well fitting fashionable outfits will already set you apart from the crowd.
Uh, No.
I've basing it on literally years of research on the topic:
I've researched the Low TFR Issue
I've researched the legal and economic side of it. Pointed out how corporations are technically competing with men for women's commitment.
I brought up the "how many marriageable women are actually out there question literally a year ago, then I ran some very rough numbers.
I've pontificated on why intersex relations have degraded over two years ago.
I've even researched the age-gap question.
This includes talking to real people, I can offhand name a dozen people in my circle experiencing the EXACT. SAME. ISSUES.
I beg you to try and give me some data that I haven't seen yet. You came in and assumed off of 3 comments that I've somehow NOT bothered to look into this issue at every level I can?
In fact, I've put in a LOT of effort to try to find the evidence that runs against this point, but in this search I keep finding videos like the ones I posted, which seem to confirm the data, the anecdotes, the personal experience. All of it pointing in the same direction.
Your attempt to dismiss my point out of hand without a single argument has been noted, and my opinion has remained utterly unchanged.
This is not a problem for me. I am not the one who needs to hear this advice.
I am the one telling you this advice is useless for most men under current conditions and you sound like a Boomer telling someone to sharpen up their resume and give the manager a firm handshake to get hired.
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I will say, this is a lot better than there being a (new) epidemic of men being chopped up or having their dicks chopped off. I suppose if you wanted to get particularly creative, a particularly disgusting case would be an epidemic of meat intended for eating being discovered as, well, "chopped man"!
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Look, listen, I'm broadly sympathetic to the points you're raising about relationships for younger people, but this ain't it. Women are more religious than men, and this just so happens to be a religious belief that they have to proclaim even in anonymous surveys, but that doesn't mean they actually believe it. See: Lizzo is beautiful, right up until you call a woman beautiful just like Lizzo.
Ironically men are attending church more than women now, the previous trend is just barely inverted.
Which suggests women have indeed found a replacement outlet for their religious tendencies. Things are getting janky.
But yeah, to the extent women are saying this, its ultimately just a shit-test or its them asserting high standards so they can pretend they're more selective.
Because they converted to another religion, which is conveniently not tracked by church attendance, as it's pretending to not be a religion.
Now I am wondering what the equivalent to the church service is for these folks.
Protest marches, for one, but surely they don't have weekly sermons in the equivalent of a chapel.
Like church, most people don't attend regularly. They just go to the holiday services (pride).
But as with certain varieties of Buddhism, most people will spend a period in a monastery (university) where they will engage in serious study and pious indoctrination.
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Jon Stewart/John Oliver/the other guy with glasses/the View/&etc.
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TLDR: A number of women are now going online and complaining that the majority of men are unattractive/ugly('chopped men'). The pushback from some of the more spicy internet content creators is that the women complaining about this are all mid, and have no space to talk.
Sadly, this isn't a new opinion. I've seen a number of threads in popular reddit forums(I know, I know) that have voiced similar opinions, that when going out in public, they never see men that they find attractive.
Assuming this is all done in good faith, it's a demonstration of just how women and men are different. I can go out in public and I'm going to see plenty of women I find cute, attractive, appealing, classy, and whatnot. That women don't have a similar mindset is, well, depressing, more than anything.
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It will fail because men in the government want your money, not because women do.
Men who were elected mostly by women. Who want gibs.
This "women never do anything" perspective is one of the major pillars holding the status quo in place.
Everyone wants gibs. Cushy government jobs, questionable grants, corporate welfare and industry nepotism are not a gendered phenomenon.
Sure, but women want gibs more as a matter of simple fact. It is absolutely gendered.
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I don't.
Neither do it, at face value, but you and I are a vanishingly small minority.
And OTOH, let's dig deeper: I don't want there to be gibs, but since the gibs are already out of the box, why shouldn't they go to myself as well as to the less deserving? With that framing in mind, I too want gibs.
I voluntarily took a pretty big paycut to avoid gibs. Admittedly, I am not exactly of a pure heart here, as I was enjoying said gibs for quite a while, but I claim partial credit for eventually refusing them.
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As if governments didn't collect taxes with brutal force for less noble causes than that for millenia.
Your point being?
My point being, the state of welfare for women is utterly irrelevant to what happens if men "just refuse to pay taxes", as per faceh, because governments extract taxes with certainty that doesn't care what they then spend them on. If all women were principled self-sufficient libertarians there would still be taxes.
But without a welfare state the taxes would, presumably, be smaller.
No, they'd just go to different people.
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I've made the point before that women are a potent political force, but an incompetent military one
If things get heated for real, the side that wins will absolutely positively NOT be the one that is depending on women voting for them.
So its a question of who has enough motivated men to 'force' the issue.
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