Lightning Round – 2012/10/10

A salute to conventional wisdom.

Destroying our kids, one drug at a time.
Related: John Dewey is one of the worst Americans ever.

If she’s had sex before marriage, she’s probably had better sex before she married you.
Related: Ruined by 5 minutes of alpha.

Debasing marriage.
Related: Peter Pan Manboys.
Related: Mark Minter on marriage. Nihilism in action.
Related: The importance of marriage. Part 2.

Feminist responds to Aurini. Can’t handle red pill; calls him a monster;.
Aurini responds.

The Bible: the original Red Pill.

Some brides are just disgusting.

Most women aren’t worth chivalry.

No dating relationship should last 9 years.

Game Theory: The Axioms of Game.

The misandry bubble has popped. The anti-feminism bubble is beginning.

Boomers and the War on the Young.

SAT Data: Boys score better, even though girls do better in school.

The manosphere is for men.

The good guys win one.

Female doubts about a marriage lead to divorce (men’s don’t).

Science: Slowly destroying egalitarianism brick by brick.

Better strength than smarts.

Frost contemplates being back home.

As I’ve written before: child care is not economical.

Cool. I hate the phone, but I hate texting even more.

Why liberals are ugly redux. The original.

Society requires old men to be dangerous.

The decline occurs because society is corrupt at every level.

Liberal economics. We trade “leadership” for stuff.

Estonia: Austerity works. Screw you Krugman.
So did Reagenomics. Screw Keynesianism.

Producer tells the truth. Leftists freak out.

Alternatives to tough luck for libertarians.

Socialism in action. Good food banned in schools.

I hate the phrase “correlation doesn’t equal causation“. It is almost always used as an intellectual cop-out by people who don’t understand it.

The miracle of photoshop.

Hehe… Tolerant leftists and dating conservatives.

Striking is for ignoramuses without self-respect.

How it feels to be smart. I’m not quite as smart as the writer, but his observations seem about right.

(H/T: SDA, Maggie’s Farm, Bitter Babe, 3MM, the Captain, Instapundit, Shining Pearls, RWCAG)

Demanding More

There’s been a little bit of debate on the infantalization of men within the alt-right/manosphere, so I decided to weigh in. (I have a companion piece to this post here, read it to give more context to this post).

The Social Pathologist wrote:

The manosphere rightly criticizes women for their diminishing femininity, but what the manosphere does not do so well is criticize the increasing infantisation of men.  When Roosh and his followers point out that quality women are only to be found outside the U.S. he is giving the masculine version of the modern feminist lament that there are no good men at home. What many manosphere commentators fail to recognize is that the nice computer nerd is the male equivalent of the nice fat chick. The manosphere demands thinness  but criticizes women for wanting its feminine equivalent. Mote, beam, eye. It’s all a bit of hypocrisy.

There are two problems with his argument here.

The first problem is the difference between the manosphere and modern feminism. The manosphere is actively trying to improve men; they are encouraging men to become better, more masculine players, or better, more masculine patriarchs. They are actively trying to move away from being the nice computer nerds and become better at being a man. (Whether that’s better or not for women is debatable).

(The other section of the manosphere, the MGTOW, may not advocate self-improvement as much, but they are not hypocritical because they are also no longer calling for women to improve. They’ve simply decided to take their ball and go home and have given the reasons why).

Modern feminism on the other hand is actively trying to make women less feminine. They are actively encouraging women to be fat (fat acceptance), to be “outspoken” (read: bitchy), and to discard their traditional societal roles. They are actively trying to make woman worse. They are encouraging women to become bitchy (not nice) fat chicks.

The second problem with his argument is the underlying social context. The problem the manosphere has is not, so much, about women preferring alpha men to beta men, it is that women and society lie about it.

Men are honest about what they want. Most men (lying manginas and fat fetishists, aside) are honest about their preferences and are quite willing to say “I want a thin, feminine women with a nice chest.” Women are told and know exactly what men want. Some women lie to themselves that fat is beautiful (Rubens like fat women… dur), but even then their complaints are that men do not appreciate their “beauty”, not that men are actually lying to them about it.

On the other hand, women lie (or genuinely don’t know) about their preferences. If you ask women (be they your mother, sisters, female friends, whomever) what women want, the answer will usually be something similar to “a nice, loving man in touch with his emotion who wants to settle down and share the housework equally.” The problem being something any nice young man looking to settle down realizes quite quickly: women’s actual choices in men are something else entirely.

If women just came out and said that they were attracted to aloof, dominant, irresponsible, alpha bad boys, there would be no problem. (There would also be no problem if women found betas attractive like they said). Men would have the honest truth and could live their life accordingly. The problem is that men are sucking up the lies about women’s desire for a loving beta, are having these lies dashed around them, and, when they wonder why, are lied to even more. It is not the preferences that are the problem, it is the lies surrounding the preferences that are the problem.

The difference is that men are honest about what attracts them, but women are dishonest (or mistaken) about what they are attracted to. These are what separate the “why are there no good men?” feminists and the manosphere.

In a later post he wrote:

The manosphere has quite rightly denounced the corruption of women by feminism but what it has been unable see is the failure in modern masculinity. Roosh and Roissy may get lots of lays but they would have hardly been though of examples of masculinity either in Roman, Greek or Victorian times. Hedonism was always the “soft” option of manhood. And the reality today is that many men are soft. Not so much physically as in character. Women are far “harder” today and more self disciplined. Making women “softer” may restore some of their femininity but it no way guarantees the masculinity of men.  Taking away a woman’s rights does not give a man alpha qualities.

Simon Grey responded:

And so, while I agree with the MRA crowd that most women would make for terrible wives, I also agree with Slumlord that most men make for terrible husbands.  Quite simply, most people in this world are self-absorbed cowards, too afraid to live up to their potential, and too weak to suppress their self-destructive tendencies.  No wonder their marriages and relationships turn cancerous.

I agree, most young men today would make terrible husbands, but they both stop there. They do not ask why, and that is the important question.

Why are most young men today living as “Peter Pan” manboys?

(We could ask the same about why most women would make poor wives, but the manosphere has covered that fairly extensively already; the answer boils down to feminism).

Dalrock has already has partially answered the question and has hit a key point:

While we might argue about the speed and magnitude of men’s reaction to such a shift, as well as the specific mechanism we might observe (marriage strike vs weakened signal, etc), I don’t see how one could argue that an overall decline in men’s eagerness to work hard in preparation to lead families is surprising.

We wanted non threatening men, and now we have them.

But I don’t think he spells it out clearly enough, so I’m going to.

The reason there are so many losers, manboys, men without chests, or whatever you wish to call them, comes down to one, solitary word. This word is probably the single most important word when it comes to any social pheonomenum. This word is:

Incentives

This is the centre-piece of economics. This is the single most explanatory concept in all the social sciences. Incentives.

People respond to incentives. If there are positive incentives for a behaviour, there will be more of that behaviour. If there are negative incentives for a behaviour, there will be less of that behaviour.

No matter how much cajoling is done, no matter how much people are shamed, no matter how many laws are written, the incentive structure of society (of which cajoling, shaming, and laws are all a part) will override them all.

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So, what are the incentives of the young man today?

I was originally going to write a short narrative, but it turned long, too long for this post. You can read it here, it provides more context.

The young man today is put in 13 years of public school and university, where people are judged primarily by their ability tosit still and parrot what their teachers say. Where masculine behaviours, such as risk-taking, dominance, and rough-housing are discouraged, banned, and punished. Sometimes these behaviours even result in a regime of drugging. The entire system is as structured as a tightly run concentration camp.

On the other hand, young males are taught that their natural desires are destructive and to be controlled, but are not taught the discipline necessary to control them. They are taught to get in touch with their emotions, except those school administration think are dangerous. They are taught self-esteem, where no matter what they accomplish (or don’t accomplish) they are special and deserving. They are not taught self-control, they are taught hedonism.

This produces a horrible dichotomy of a lack of freedom and a lack of discipline. The entire school system is geared towards teaching young boys subservience and dependence (beta traits) and to destroy their in-born initiative, risk-taking, and ambition (alpha traits).

Right from the get go, authorities teach young boys that traditional masculine behaviours are punished, while weakness and beta traits (not always the same) are rewarded.

In university, the incentive structure is much the same. Obey and parrot and be rewarded.

Men are taught, while young, that the authorities will reward for being weak and punish for being strong. They are also taught an entitlement mentality.

This is the incentive structure the primary authorities in their life (children spend as much or more time being instructed by the school system than their parents) ingrain in them from a young age.

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On the other hand, the social system of both school and university naturally coalesces into an opposing dynamic. Children are socialized through other children than through other adults. They pick up natural, feral attitudes towards interpersonal relations rather than a more mature civilized attitude to social relations.

In this social system, the alphas are socially and sexually rewarded, while the more awkward betas are not. Young men learn that sex, social status, and relationships can be obtained without work. In fact, men are taught that the irresponsible “cool” kids are more likely to be socially and sexually rewarded than the more responsible “nerds”.

In other words, they know they can satiate their primary genetic drive without having to contribute to society, as long as they act “like jerks.”

Young men are taught that irresponsibility pays now.

The only threat we have against this the long term: responsibility pays in the long run.

This worked until the last decade or so, until long-term incentives began to collapse.

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What are the long-term incentives for your young adult male, so he is responsible?

A good-paying, worthwhile job, a house, a loving wife, social status, and a family.

The good-paying job is dying in the current economic corruption. 50% of our young people are either under- or unemployed. Their college degrees are worthless. They are shackled with near unmanageable student debt. Self-employment is a no-go. Government regulations strangle most industries and are especially painful to small businesses. (Not to mention, the initiative and ambition necessary for self-employment were beat out of him by the school system). Those who do get jobs are usually suffering in useless government busywork or brutally impersonal corporate work.

Simply put, there are no longer any guarantees that hard-work and responsibility will lead to a worthwhile job. But even if he eventually gets a job, he is punished by having half his income is taken by the state and given to the irresponsible.

He can still get a home, but not without the job. That, and the young man doesn’t want a home for himself; he wants it so he can raise a family. This incentive is more an ancillary option to the other incentives.

The primary incentive is a wife and family, but that incentive is becoming meaningless.

The average age of marriage for is 28 (in Canada it’s 31). Think about that. Your average man will not find a wife until a full decade after he graduates from high school and about 15 years after he hits puberty.

During this 15 years of either loneliness and sexual frustration for betas or, for the alphas, hedonism and sexual license, what lessons are being learned by men?

Irresponsibility.

Men are learning to get used to irresponsibility. How the hell can you expect most men to be prepared for the responsibility of a wife and family after he has had a full decade of getting acquainted to irresponsibility?

You can’t.

But lets say he’s prepared for marriage. It’s highly unlikely his wife is a virgin: his dating pool probably has more single mothers than virgins. She’s not going to bond to him.

There’s a 50% chance that he will lose his family. When he loses his family, there is a good chance he will be subjected to alimony slavery and have his family kidnapped from him. I’m not going into detail here, because other’s have wrote much more comprehensive articles on the risks of marriage, but marriage is becoming and increasingly bad option.

Social status? Hahaha… Being a responsible person no longer create social status. “Office drones” are looked down upon. The rich and successful are castigated and punished. Everybody is equal now. There is no more of the base respect and social status given to a man who quietly works hard to provide for his family.

So, where are his incentives to be responsible?

When having a family is a decade away and is likely to be punished with divorce, alimony theft, and having his children ripped from him? When hard work and an education no longer means a job, let alone a meaningful one? When he’s grown accustomed to the freedom of singledom? When he is punished for career success? When the lazy and irresponsible are rewarded with his hard-earned income?

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Overall, the entire incentive structure of society is biased towards men being irresponsible.

If a man is irresponsible, he gets to play video games now. He gets sex now. He gets to hang out with his friends now.

If a man is responsible, there is no immediate gain. When there were long-term incentives, this was fine, but the long term incentives are breaking down.

Why should men act responsibly, when the incentives are towards irresponsibility?

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Pathologist illustrated his point about weak men with a story about a “responsible” young women with an irresponsible young man for a boyfriend.

Many in the manosphere would view this woman as a demanding bitch. I don’t. She would be a good modern fit for Proverbs 31:10-31. She has independently, on a low income, saved money and bought herself a house, put tenants in it and has a long term plan for the future. She is keeping down a job and has been able to organise her own affairs. She wants a stable future and does not want to live in poverty. By the way, I’d estimate her BMI at about 22. Such a woman is percieved as a threat to Western Civilisation by the manosphere. Facepalm.

She is a threat to Western Civilization, not because she is a “demanding bitch”, but because she is not demanding enough. If she was a Proverbs 31 women she would not be shacking up with an irresponsible man. She would have demanded marriage to a man “known in the gates when he sits among the elders of the land.” ie. She would have married a responsible and respected man. Instead, she is giving herself to an worthless man without any demands of responsibility from him.

She is the one creating perverse incentives.

By herself, her actions don’t matter. But if you multiply her by a few million women, all demanding nothing out of the men they bed, then you have a threat to civilization.

She made her choice to date a loser, to be irresponsible, and to reward irresponsible behaviour. She now has to face the consequences of her choices. Society now has to face the consequences of her actions.

When love is free, most men won’t pay for it.

If men aren’t paying, civilization is threatened.

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The manosphere is right to demand more from women, but there is also a corollary. Women need to demand more from men.

We need a society that demands more from everybody and rewards those, and only those, who meet those demands. People will only rise to the level that societal incentives reward.

Everything in life comes down to incentives. Right now, the incentive structure for men is built so that irresponsibility is rewarded, while responsibility is punished. When the incentives for men are structured this way you will get irresponsible men.

If women, conservatives, and the Social Pathologist want responsible men, they should help restructure society so that the incentives of society, particularly, in this case, those related to sex and relationships, reward responsible men, and punish irresponsible men.

The Life of a Beta

Your average beta is born. He grow up surrounded by family. They are good times, but he barely remembers them.

Then something changes; he spends 13 years being psychological castrated, mentally oppressed, (sometimes) physically abused, and viciously indoctrinated in what we term the public school system. He has no option but to go and is too inexperienced to realize what is being done to him. But, he is promised that if he does good , he will get a good job, have lots of money, marry a loving wife, and have kids of his own; he looks forward to that. While in this system he is thoroughly feminized; his natural masculine traits are banned, punished, and even drugged out of him.

He sees the young alpha who beats him up and torments him. He sees that the young alpha has many more friends than him. He sees the pretty girls who ignore him smile at the young alpha and even hears rumours they do more than smile.

But he is taught by this system, his church, his parents, and every authority figure he knows that if he obeys, he persists, works hard, and he suppresses his masculinity he will be rewarded with a job, a wife, a house, and a family. God, the market, and the state will smile upon him and bless him.

The young bully will get his. God, the market, and the state will punish him in time. Someday our young beta will be his bully’s boss. He’ll have the nice house and pretty wife, while the bully is working at McDonald’s.

So, he endures. He allows himself to be psychologically castrated. He’s slightly uneasy about it, it doesn’t feel quite right, but he goes with it because everyone is telling him to and he doesn’t fully realize exactly what he allowing to be done to him. In his spare time, he and his friends play video games to keep their minds off their lack of social life and of the shit they have to put up with at school.

The young beta is almost done school looking forward to his reward, but then the powers that be tell him, not yet. You’ll get your reward, but first you have to go through a 3-6 year sentence at this other indoctrination system, labelled a university. Go through this and you will be blessed. Just remember to pay the tens of thousands of dollars of tuition, but don’t worry about it. There are loans, and with the money you’ll make, they’ll be easy to pay off.

The young beta acquiesces; he’s a good person, not a troublemaker. He wants to help society, not fight it. Besides he desires his blessing.

So he goes. He is taught in this university that he is evil because he is a man and men oppress women. He was taught that he is evil because the ancestors of people with his skin colour won some land in wars from the ancestors of people with different skin colour from his centuries ago. He is taught that being rich is evil, because rich people oppress the poor. He is taught his religious beliefs are evil and oppressive. It doesn’t sound right, but these are men of learning; these are the great and the good; these are the wise men of society. So he is persuaded.

He avoids being dominant and manly around women, for he doesn’t want to oppress them. He becomes to question whether the house and job he was promised are his right. Is it only his greed and his “privilege” to expect these things? He’ll work hard so he deserves them, then he’ll help others with some of it. He starts going to a more liberal, less oppressive church; one that isn’t so judgmental.

So, he works hard. He studies, he has a part-time jobs, and he takes out some student loans. He goes to the occasional party, maybe he has one or two short relationships, maybe he doesn’t. But he’s concentrating on school.

He sees some young alphas at school. They are always at every party,including all the ones he’s not invited to. They act dominant around women and treat the women poorly. They are oppressing women, yet they always seem to have a girl in their arms and every week in class they brag about the great sex and fun times they had over the weekend.

But the authorities assure our beta that those are not quality girls. Those girls don’t really like him, he’s just fooling the gullible into bed. The women don’t actually like the those oppressive men. Eventually those alphas will end up alone.

Real women like the sensitive beta man. He’s just has to wait for the right girl to marry him.

So, he waits, he studies. In his spare time he plays video games, because getting drunk and partying will interfere with his job and his schooling. When he graduates he’ll get a job and get married to a quality women.

He’s 21 and nearing graduation. He applies for jobs, but none come. He graduates, and moves back in with family because he can’t afford an apartment, let alone his house.

He works a part-time job; the alpha who used to bully him works at the same job, but is paid $1 more an hour because he’s been there longer. The bully always seems to have a girlfriend who visits him at work, the beta hasn’t had a date for a year.

He keeps applying for jobs, but never seems to get any. The authorities tell him not to worry; there’s a recession, everybody is having trouble. Keep trying, we’ll bounce back anytime and there will be lots of jobs. Then you’ll get your job and your house. When you have those a wife will surely come.

He spends his free time playing video games. He occasionally has fanciful ideas about starting his own business, but he doesn’t know how. He has no idea how to start. No one ever taught him and everybody had always told him to pursue a stable corporate job.

After a year of applying, he finally gets an office job. It doesn’t relate to what he studied and is not very exciting but at least he’s employed. He hasn’t had a date since he graduated. One of the alphas from university works at the same job as him. The alpha is also having a liaison with the cute coworker on a different floor.

He has a job, so he purchases a house. The house is expensive, it eats up a large portion of his paycheck, but he gets by. He’ll be able to raise a family with this house. In his spare time he plays video games with his friends.

He doesn’t really have anywhere to meet a girl other than work and church you can’t shit where you eat and none of the girls at church are interested. He tries online dating but is mostly unsuccessful.

He continues to work. He dislikes it and the office politics suck, but he’s good at it. There’s a promotion. He applies, but the alpha gets it as he’s better at office politics. A few months later the alpha leaves for a higher-paying position elsewhere, so the beta gets promoted.

He’s still lonely; the promised wife is not to be found. On the other hand, he’s getting used to having no responsibilities. He can play video games whenever he wants. He can spend his money on anything he likes. Pornography and masturbation takes the edge of his loneliness. A lack of responsibility and prolifigacy with money become a norm he’s accustomed to.

Finally, at age 29 he meets a women of 28 at church. she rejected him a few years ago, but after a bad break-up she started to treat him differently.  She’s moderately pretty, but he can tell her looks are declining. He dates her. He likes her, although, she’s somewhat bitter about men. He finds out that she used to hook-up with the alpha’s at university and they didn’t treat her well. she’s looking for a real man. The beta’s happy because he is a real man.

They get married. The beta has trouble adjusting. His wife does not allow him the freedom he got used to while single, but he loves her, so he spends less time with his friends and less time playing video games. He spends more time watching romance movies with her. They decide to have a child, but the wife wants a bigger house first. On both incomes, they can easily afford a bigger house, so they move.

She gets pregnant and says she wants to quit to raise the child until he’s old enough for school. He recently got a promotion to Assistant Vice Manager of Internal Corporate Affairs, so they can afford it, barely, if he works overtime and they cut expenses.

They have the child, but the wife continues to spend as they did before. She also doesn’t lose the weight she put on in pregnancy, so he’s less attracted to her. On the other hand, he put on some weight recently and he’s too busy working even more overtime to pay off credit card debt to have sex all that often, so he doesn’t mind. He loves his wife and child and would do anything for them.

This goes on; his wife never does go back to work when his child reaches school age. She has a lot of time at home alone, but even then the chores never seem to be done.  When his daughter is in first grade, his wife surprises him with divorce papers. She tells him that she felt alone and unappreciated; he wasn’t meeting her emotional needs, all he did was work. She also tells him she’s been cheating on him with one of the alpha’s she used to hook up with in university. That explains why she’d been losing weight recently.

He goes to divorce court. His wife gets the family house, the child, and he has to pay alimony. She also gets the mutual friends from church. He has to work even more overtime to support both his family. He tries to rent an apartment on his own, but after about a couple years he can no longer afford it. Besides, it’s too big for him and he rarely sees his child anymore, anyway. She now calls his ex-wife’s new boyfriend daddy.

He goes looking for a roommate. He finds an advertisement in the paper. He meets up with the guy. They talk, the other guy seems decent. They get along well. He recently broke up with his girlfriend of two years who kicked him out of her house and can’t afford an apartment on his own either. They move in together.

They enjoy themselves. One good thing about the divorce is he has more free time, so he plays a lot of video games together with his new roommate. They split the rent; our beta makes more than his roommate who only has a low-skill manual labour job, but because of alimony they’re actual spending money is similar.

He reconnects with old friends, one from his university days and a few recent divorcees from church, and he makes new friends through his roommate. The pain begins to fade and he begins to get used to singledom once again.

A few months later while unpacking, the beta stumbles across his old yearbook. He flips through it, reminiscing about old times and old schoolmates. His roommate enters notices him reading, and hey, his roommate tells him they went to the same school and points himself out in the book. The beta realizes his roommate is the alpha who used bully him. His roommate remembers and he apologizes. The beta forgives him; they’re good friends now and in the same boat.

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This was originally going to be a small part of another post, but took on a life of its own. I am writing the rest of the original post to put up tomorrow. It will have (hopefully) have more context then.

Lightning Round – 2012/10/03

The science of the rationalization hamster.

Dalrock takes the enemies of marriage in the church to task.

Penis size and science.
The important point: am I bigger than average for my country?
Answer: yes. Boo-yah!

Wow. A good look into the mind of the unhappy modern feminist if you can stomach the entitlement, pointlessness, and poor writing quality. It reads like she just vomited her stream of consciousness on the page.
Wouldn’t she make the best wife?
Aurini administers the truth pills.

A leftist swallows a red pill.
He just needs to swallow some more.

The manosphere is growing. I’ve noticed a lot of new blogs popping up since my relatively new blog started.

Bill is encouraged.
I offer more encouragement.
So do Matt and Aurini.
Bill responds.

Better to have guts than brains.
Related: Sometimes you have to ignore the big picture.

Taking away the rights of women is affirmative action for betas.
A response. The game has been rigged, but most men don’t deserve marriage.
Related: Men today are soft.

Up the Alpha.
Related: The Perfect Man.

She’ll be happier if she does the housework.

The heart is deceitful above all things.

Sheltering your children may leave them as prey.

There is hope for the future.

What love is.

How to end up with a frigid cow of a wife.

Some science: concealed ovulation.

Some freedom pills are dolled out to those who wish to partake.
Related: Remember when dissent was patriotic.
Related: This guy does.

What’s wrong with the Koch brothers?

Maybe libertarians are aspies.

Former Obama Administrator for the NYT: We need death panels.
No kidding. You mean someone has to decide how to ration health care or costs will become unsustainable? Really? Are the people at the NYT retarded? Or am I insulting retards? We all told them this would happen. Idiots.

Calling this guy a jackass is an insult to jackasses.

Hmmm…

Female economists are more likely to support government intervention. Surprising.

What this election is about.

The tribe of liberty needs to stand united.

Why leftists are ugly.

Which colour-coded tribe do you support?
Related: A funny video.

There are probably some lessons to learn here.
There have to be lessons here somewhere. (Irony).

All that spending sure helped those kids. Glad our tax dollars were well spent.
Related: You could buy two houses in Detroit instead.
Related: “the youngest children among U.S. kindergartners (those born in August) were 40% more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD and twice as likely to take ADHD medications as the oldest kindergartners studied (those born in September)”
Related: One guy realizes the damage he did much too late.

Resurrect the Kalmar Union.

(H/T: Instapundit, SDA, the Captain)

More Encouragement for Bill

Bill over at Apocalypse Cometh was encouraged by the anger and planning of a young person who e-mailed him.

So, I thought I’d give him a bit more encouragement.

The rage that person expresses is not that uncommon among young men in their late teens and twenties. Our generation has inherited a world of shattered families, smashed gender relations, eroded civic virtue, and decayed social institutions.  Our education system is a broken mess of deceit, mental oppression, psychological castration, and exploitative larceny. When we finally graduate university, we face economic stagnation, unemployment, and hopeless economic prospects.

Rage is not uncommon. As an well-known example, advise him to check out /b/ on 4chan. (The link goes to Wikipedia. I am not linking to the site as it is very much NSFW. Do not visit it if you are prone to being offended by, well, anything). I’m not sure if Bill would know of it or not, it’s not something older folks are generally aware of.

The site is populated by, primarily, young adult males, mostly of the beta and omega male varieties. It is massive; it currently stands at about the 1,000 busiest website in the world (about 500-600th in the US), with about 18 million users a month (about 6% of the US population). As the origin point for almost every popular internet meme you may have encountered, it has huge cultural power.

Out of any place you can check, it is probably the best indicator of the attitudes of current generation of what young adult beta males. The anonymity of the site frees to talk as they wish without the confines of societal pressure.

So what are thoughts of the beta males on this site?

Rage, pain, and cultural nihilism.

It is infested with every kind of racism, violence, gore, misogyny, pornography, and the like you can imagine (and many you never would).  There are no taboos about anything: everything from suicide to religion to the handicapped is mocked and profaned. Those who don’t partake or object are mocked as “moralfags” (everybody on 4chan is labelled a ****fag).

Nihilism, anger, hatred, and sadistic glee permeate the site, but even underneath all that, it is hard to judge them for it. Because underneath all the rage is a sense of bitterness, pain, alienation, and unquenchable loneliness.

They are hurting; they are despairing. They are stuck in a society that is destroying them and are lashing out in the only way they know how.

Check out this comic which explains how many of them see themselves and their site. I’d embed it, but it becomes unreadable.

****

This is the new generation of young males and it’s frightening.

There are 18 million young males spending good chunks of their time on this site. They feel betrayed, hurt, and angry and they are desensitizing themselves to the normal moral prescriptions that hold society together.

When we talk about the decline and the destruction of our youth, this is what we are talking about. When we talk about the economic and cultural hopelessness among our youth, this is it. When we talk of the beta males being ground down, this is what we’re talking about. When idiots talk about man-children or Peter Pan boys who refuse to grow up, this is what they don’t know they are referring to.

All the theory, all the hypothesizing: this is where it exists in reality.

Bill may find “Someone” encouraging, but I’m not so sure. He’s only the small tip.

Most of these people are probably outcasts sitting alone in their basements who will never take action on their own, but out of the millions, there are probably at least a few thousand that are leaders, some that are organizing something.

Even if there isn’t, how can a society continue for long when such a large portion of its young adult males are this disengaged, this nihilistic, this bitter about their society.

What happens when these millions of young adult males bring this bitterness and rage beyond the internet? A few protests from Anonymous (as they call themselves) at Occupy and elsewhere have been largely ineffective so far, but how long will that last?

I don’t know, but when there is this much unfocused rage and pain, among this many of the coming generation, it can’t be good.

What happens when the unfocused rage becomes focused?

Maybe this isn’t encouragement for Bill, maybe it is, but I don’t think the consequences will be anything anybody likes.

Solipsism in Action

Slate (always a good place for blog material) had an article on a comment from Quora asking: Why Are Women So Negative About the “Pickup Artist” Community?

Quora has numerous other responses which, along with the comments on this particular answer at both Slate and Quora, vary between pro- and anti-game and which will mostly be familiar to those with experience in the Manosphere. I’m mostly only going to comment on this one because Slate published it, it’s the most upvoted on Quora, and it’s amazing how hard the hamster is running.

I read The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists (which I still think is a really interesting book) and ended up meeting a lot of people who were in the pick-up artist community (not a goal—it just happened).

I even ended up helping out with one of their weekend seminars, to be a “female test dummy,” essentially. Far from the stereotype of sleazy guys who want one-night stands, 24 of the 25 guys in the class were just awkward, nerdy guys who just wanted a girlfriend (the 25th wanted to bring home a girl for a threesome with his girlfriend). But that’s not the instruction of these classes. The classes are about getting laid, not getting a girlfriend.

This was my first big hint that something was wrong. There was a mismatch. They were taking guys who wanted girlfriends and teaching them how to pick up girls in bars.

She’s correct that’s exactly what game generally does (Dalrock, Athol, et al. being the minority), but in her self-absorption, she doesn’t even question why there’s a mismatch.

The reason there is a mismatch is simple: there is nothing else.

If you are an awkward, nerdy male, the only people willing and able to teach you practical advice for attracting women are the PUAs. I’ve checked. There is simply no one outside the manosphere teaching men how to meet a pleasant, moderately pretty girl for a stable long-term relationship.

I’ve read a number of Christian books and articles on dating, but they all assume a woman is attracted to you. They are either discussions of what kind of dating is appropriate and exhortations against sin or man up articles on how to avoid sex in relationships, how to avoid leading women on, and how to be firm in your intentions. There is almost no practical advice on how to actually attract a girl in first place so that the other advice has any relevance.

(For any Christian manospherians reading this, here’s a great book idea: write a guide to help awkward Christian guys attract a Christian wife. Market it in the Christian culture industry and you’d make a killing. I’d write it, but I’m not qualified at this point.)

Going outside the Christian stuff, everywhere else you look the socially awkward male is given the same advice: be yourself and be a nice guy, she’ll come… eventually.

Guess what?

We already do that: it doesn’t work. If it did work, we wouldn’t be looking for advice.

For women (and church leaders and others who may care): if you do not want awkward guys going to PUA’s for advice on attracting women, offer a viable alternative.

The only reason I started taking guys like Roissy or Roosh even remotely seriously was because they were the first people I found anywhere who gave enough of a shit to give some practical, useful advice. I haven’t adopted either game or playerhood, but I have tried some of their more morally neutral advice and it has been useful. (I’m now more influenced by the Athol/Dalrock approach).

How royally screwed up is it that self-proclaimed assholes like Roissy and Mentu are the only ones honest and selfless enough to give practical advice to the awkward guy looking for companionship (even if they mock us while they do it)?

The second thing she misses is this: yes, we want a relationship, but, failing that, getting laid is a nice second place (religious convictions aside) for most men.

If you don’t want awkward men to settle for the second prize, make it possible for them to attain the first.

How many relationships do you know of that started in bars? Do you know any? If you want a girlfriend, go sign up for an online dating site. Start dating! Statistically speaking, bars don’t work.

Solopsism starts here at its finest and continues throughout. (We’ll ignore the fact that a lot of relationships nowadays start in bars). Dating sites may be good advice for women, but, statistically speaking, online dating sites are a horrible option for men, particularly for socially awkward men.

Online dating work for most females (the lower quintile is in much the same position as most men); they can revel in the attention of dozens of men for little cost and choose their pick with minimal effort, but for your average male, online dating is a vicious, slogging grind of inanity, rejection, and flaking with with minimal chance of success.

The problem here is that touching can be flirty, but it can also be really creepy when the touching isn’t natural. And when you’re telling an awkward, nerdy guy who has no idea how to flirt “OK, now, touch a girl here,” it’s almost always creepy. (Personally, I don’t like random guys at bars touching me. It makes me really uncomfortable.)

In other words, women like being touched by guys they are attracted to, but keep those awkward nerds away from them.

And she laments awkward nerds trying to learn how to attract women.

And then you’re telling the guy to criticize the girl, which is just plain mean.

That criticism would probably be more effective if the neg didn’t work. It’s simple really:

If women don’t want men to use negs and “be mean”, they shouldn’t respond positively to it.

And then, when the girl isn’t interested, the guy is now being told, “Oh, she’s just trying to play games with you.” He doesn’t back off. Eww.

Guess what? The awkward nerd has no idea how to tell if the girl is interested or not. That’s why he’s at one of these workshops in the first place. To learn to gauge interest so that he doesn’t get the “eww” response.

And all of this is ridiculous because sometimes, the girl is out of your league or at least just isn’t interested. I’m 5-foot-9, and I’m just not going to go home with a guy who is 5-foot-3, goes by the nickname “Snake” (seriously?!?), or is overweight, pimply, or won’t just answer a direct question about what he does for a living.

Remember to know your place you creepy nerd. Don’t you dare try to improve yourself or better your chances with women.

With this kind of harsh judgmentalism from women (especially a woman pretending she cares about guys), is it really a surprise the awkward go to PUAs for advice?

Also, there’s some internal contradiction here. If the women is already rejecting the guy because she thinks she’s out of his league, what could he possibly lose for being “creepy”? She’ll reject him either way; at least if he hits on her there’s a small chance of success.

Once upon a time, this guy might have been a perfectly normal but nerdy guy, who could have dated online, met someone nice, got married, and been perfectly happy.

Once upon a time this guy could have waited until his mid-30’s to meet a hard-used, bitter women trying for her hail mary attempt at a  baby and who will later divorce him. Now he’s being twisted so much he may no longer be available as a post-wall, last-ditch relationship.

PUA instruction turns awkward, nerdy guys who just want a girlfriend into creepy guys who harass and insult women. And that’s not OK!

How dare they steal away my beta-orbiters and my fall-back plan for when I leave the carousel.

PUA instruction teaches guys these mechanical ways of interacting with women that don’t really work and fails to recognize that every woman is different. Some women just won’t go home with you. Sorry. Maybe she’s out of your league. Or maybe she’s just not interested in you. Or maybe she just doesn’t go home with random dudes from bars.

If it didn’t work, it wouldn’t be near as popular as it is.

The things is, game works for enough men with enough women that men will continue to use it. The specifics don’t matter; the general trends of it working for many men on many women is all that is necessary for game to continue.

The words coming out of a woman’s mouth? It’s not all a game.You can have actual conversations with us.

If the awkward male could have an actual conversation with women leading to a relationship, he wouldn’t be looking for advice from PUA’s.

But he can’t, so he does.

When I say “What do you do for a living?” it’s because I actually care. Because I’m looking for someone to build a relationship with, and someone with no career goals is not a good match for me. Answer the question.

Hurry up and let me judge you so I can get back to those alpha males.

Conversation is not all a giant game.

For the awkward, nerdy male it is. It has to be.

He doesn’t naturally know how to have a conversation, that’s the entire reason we call him awkward.

For him to learn how to have a conversation, he has to treat it like a game with rules, because it’s the only way he will understand it and have a conversation.

When I’m not interested, it’s because I’m not interested. Not because I’m putting some sort of girl test in front of you.

And yet, you, like most women, will judge him on his awkwardness anyway.

So that’s why I’m against it. Because, beyond just giving men the courage to approach women, the instruction is harmful to the guys.

Yes, that’s why you are opposed to it.

Are adult males not capable of deciding whether it is harmful to them on their own?

Some of my friends who were involved in the community got out of it OK, but they were probably more normally adjusted to start with. Another friend, well, he got his taste of one night stands and “can’t understand the point of girlfriend.” And other guys I’ve met are so uncomfortable to be around that, well, we never really became friends.

Translation:

Some of her beta orbiters have remained beta orbiters. Other beta orbiters have succeeded with game and are enjoying their success enough that they no longer pine after fantasies. And other beta orbiters are no longer willing to be beta orbiters.

As I said, the hamster was strong with this one. She has absolutely no sympathy for or understanding of the plight of your average socially awkward male. This is why those opposed to game are going to continue to lose men to game; they refuse to consider why awkward young men are turning to game in the first.

If you don’t like awkward young men turning to game: offer a viable alternative.

Socially awkward males will take it if available. All you have to do is understand their frustrations and give them something that helps them ease them.

****

The best response I saw (from Quora):

I’m just as disappointed in women for having low standards. When I can be a nerd and talk about something intelligent and be nice without socially neutering myself because I choose not to talk loud and put other people down and be polite, then the world won’t need pickup bootcamps.

That’s exactly it. If your average beta male could find a half-decent girl to settle down with in his early twenties, there would be no demand for game. There would be PUA’s (probably under a different name), as there have always been and always will be guys who want nothing more than some casual sex, but there would be no demand for game.

You look at a lot of guy on the manosphere, such as Mentu, had met a decent girl to marry while young, they would never have learned game and would never have needed to.

****

Another interesting answer at Quora was this.

He describes game as cheating.That’s an interesting way to think of it.

If you think of the sexual marketplace as a game, then game is simply violating the traditional rules to win. Nothing overly profound, but an interesting way to look at it.

Feminism and Homemaking are not Compatible

TC linked to this article in the Atlantic on feminism and homemakers by Wurtzel.

While the original article has its inaccuracies and slip-shod thinking, it is absolutely correct in its main point:

Let’s please be serious grown-ups: real feminists don’t depend on men. Real feminists earn a living, have money and means of their own.

A women can not be both a feminist and a stay-at-home mother; the two are mutually exclusive.

And there really is only one kind of equality — it precedes all the emotional hullabaloo — and it’s economic.

Modern feminism (with the possible exception of certain forms of liberal feminism which I am going to ignore for this post, but would probably be easier categorized as libertarianism rather than a form of feminism) is based on the application of marxian methodology to sexual relations. In marxian analysis, all power is, at base, economic power and varying groups are in competition with each other for this power. When marxian analysis is applied to sexual relations, the inevitable conclusion is that women and men are in a power conflict and women are economically oppressed. Only by by gaining economic power can women no longer be oppressed. Hence feminism.

Women are oppressed because they are not financially independent; only the financially independent woman can be free of oppression.

The traditional home-maker and the stay-at-home mother is economically dependent on the male breadwinner and is therefore oppressed.

Economic self-sufficiency is feminism.

****

The augmentation of her main point is dead on as well:

Being a mother isn’t a real job
…
something becomes a job when you are paid for it — and until then, it’s just a part of life.

A job is a relationship where money is exchanged for labour. If you are not getting paid, you do not have a job.

Homemaking is not a job because the homemaker is not being paid.

****

There is one specific way in which being a homemaker can be a job.

If there is a written contract between the homemaker and the breadwinner, in which the breadwinner is contractually obligated to pay the homemaker a clearly defined sum for clearly defined, contractually obligated childcare duties independently of the state of the marriage and marriage contract, the homemaker can be said to have a job.

****

Some guy named Friedersdorf had a response to the original article.

When questioning the main point of the original argument, that being a mother is a job, he pisses all over such petty things as logic. (On the other hand, his destruction of Wurtzel’s analysis of electoral politics is not bad, but her analysis was rather shoddy, so that’s not exactly something to brag about).

His argument essentially boils down to: being a homemaker is a job because it costs a lot to hire a caregiver and because raising children is both important and somewhat difficult.

Just because something requires effort, costs a lot to replace, and is important does not make it a job.

The fallacy of this is obvious. It is important that I fry myself a sausage and the alternative of eating out can be costly, that does not mean I have a job as a chef. Under his argument almost any activity can be considered a job, making the whole concept of a job meaningless.

Something is only a job if you get paid. Homemaking is not a job.

He then goes on with a tale about his mother, of which I’ll only quote a portion:

To describe her as dependent on my father for income is accurate only insofar as my parents decided together that she’d forgo working, plus the wage premium she’d gain from those lost years of work experience, to raise my sister and me, and to do other uncompensated labor

In other words, it’s entirely accurate. That’s very much being dependent; she voluntarily chose to be dependent, but she’s still dependent on a man to provide for her.

One other thing. Contrary to his assertions, his mother was not acting like a feminist. She may have had all the right cant, but she did not live them.

****

As a side note, he then makes this asinine assertion:

The legal recognition of community property was a major, rightfully celebrated feminist victory.

It was not a feminist victory. It was a form of marital law developed from civil law (as opposed to common law) and Catholic social teaching so that children were provided for if the husband died, not because of what it did for women. It preceded feminism by centuries and has only been adopted in less than a dozen states. It was, at most, a partial victory of civil law over common law in some jurisdictions (which is still not good, but that’s currently irrelevant). It was neither feminist, nor anything resembling a victory.

****

Of course, near the end of the article he actually almost begins to stumble upon the reality of the situation, seemingly by pure accident:

GDP is evidently her bottom line.

Ding, ding, ding. We have a winner.

Although,not GDP per se, economics is feminism’s bottom line. The economic power and independence of women is the central point of feminism. (Other forms of power/independence, such as political power, which are critical to feminism would flow from naturally from economic independence/power).

The notion, implicit in Wurzel’s piece, that men and women should set aside the work arrangements that best suit their families in order to further an ideological agenda

He hits the nail on the head. Feminism is an ideological agenda. It requires that men and women set aside “best suited” work arrangements in favour of the women being economically independent.

That’s exactly the damn point Wurzel was making.

If a family is not willing to do this, they are not feminist.

Feminism may require sacrifice so that a women can be economically independent.

****

The paragraph before that he stumbles upon another truth. Friedersdorf states this:

If anything, society benefits from a diversity of arrangements being tried all at once, both because variety is more conducive to fulfilling diverse individuals, and because stay-at-home parents and working parents can likely learn something from their analogs using a somewhat different model.

He is right, society does benefit from a diversity of family arrangements.

****

So, if he understands both that Wurzel is arguing that feminism requires women be economically independent and he understands that society may benefit if not every women is economically independent, what’s his problem?

His problem is that he is unable to connect the two ideas. That is why he makes up all sorts of half-baked justifications for why a homemaker somehow has a job, even though she is not getting paid, and is somehow independent, even though she depends entirely on someone else’s income for sustenance.

He is not able to connect the two ideas because he wants to be labelled a feminist (or supporter of feminism, it’s unclear which from the article and the difference is irrelevant for our purpose) without actually adhering to feminism.

As soon as he connects the two ideas his thinking will become clear and he wouldn’t have to make such logical contortions to continue to hold his own ideas, but then he would have to make a choice.

He would have to choose between feminism and his support for multiple family arrangements, because homemaking and feminism are mutually exclusive. This, of course, presents a dilemma.

If he chose feminism he would have to *shudder* judge other people’s decisions.

If he chose the acceptance of multiple family arrangements, he would *gasp* no longer be supporting feminism.

He is like the liberal Christian deciding whether he wants to follow the Bible or follow worldly wisdom. The “Christian” can’t make choice, so instead he decides to contort the Bible to fit worldly wisdom. Friedersdorf can’t make a decision so he contorts the English language and logic so that independence means dependence and a job includes any activity that requires some skill, effort, and someone somewhere gets paid for.

****

Friedersdorf’s confusion is not solely his own. Many seem to have this confusion; it is often called choice feminism.

Feminism has become very popular; most women want to be identified as strong and independent feminists. Most liberal men want to be seen as supporting female equality and feminism (which are not necessarily the same thing).

Yet, most women do not actually want what feminism is selling. They want to be dependent and have a man upon whom they can depend, they want to stay at home with their children, they don’t want to have to work at a job. Even when they work, a significant number of women choose to work in fields no different from what they would be doing as a homemaker anyway (ie. teaching, non-registered nursing, child care, etc.)

They don’t want feminism, but they want the label of feminism. So, what do they do?

They contort. They twist feminism, the English language, and logic so that they can somehow define themselves as feminist while doing things that are a denial of feminism.

They contort until somehow they have convinced themselves that being a homemaker, totally dependent on a man for income and devoted entirely to children and the home, is somehow a feminist act.

But it can not be. A women can be a homemaker or she can be a feminist. She can not be both.

Trying to be both is nothing more than self-delusion.

Choice feminism isn’t.

****

All this isn’t to say homemaking is a bad thing. In fact, I am opposed to feminism and I am in favour of woman staying home as homemakers and, if I marry, I will marry someone who wants to be a homemaker.

I support families who decide the wife should be a homemaker. I’m not going to say that it’s the hardest job in the world, because it isn’t particularly hard and it’s not a job, but I will say it’s a respectable and worthwhile life path.

But there has to be a choice: feminism or homemaking.

If homemaking is your thing, repudiate feminism. If feminism is your thing, then live it and be economically independent.

If you don’t like that feminism requires economic independence, perhaps you may want to reconsider your attachment to it.

Lightning Round – 2012/09/25

Elihu finishes up his series on Christian playerdom.
Related: Vox crushes the male hamster.
Related: The Christian Player has started a newish blog. He gets the problem, but his solution seems off. Will have to watch where this goes.

Vox explains the appeal (or lack thereof) of women’s intelligence to men.

Hehe… The people of Trader Joe’s.

A message to young women.
Related: How to waste your 20’s, so you can do what your really want in your 30’s.
Related: Your price is too high.

Sometimes you need to draw the line.

Hilarious.
Related: Female dress as solipsism.

Badger contemplates marketing to young men.

This guy’s experiences with online datign sounds like mine. Online dating is horrendous.

Be careful chasing alpha, you just might get it.

The Captain points out a wonderful case of self-delusion.

Dimensions of a perfect women.

Wow… Some men seem to have a complete lack of balls.

I’ve been ignoring quadrant two some recently. Should get back on that.

American men more likely to die from suicide than car crashes.

You have worth.

Don’t become a rentier.

We elect the bastards we deserve.
Related: The American electorate is retarded.
Related: Yup, they are.

Us Canucks have front-row seats to America’s self-destruction.
Related: We are now freer than the Yanks.

People don’t trust the media?!? How could that possibly be?

Why intellectuals oppose capitalism.

“The average effective federal tax rate for American taxpayers is 11%, according to an analysis of 2009 IRS data by the Tax Foundation”
Related: Who pays taxes in the US.

Wow, just a few decades late. Better late than never, I guess.

Some people are just horrible people.

Making the job easier makes more women join. Hurrah!?? GLP’s earlier post on the issue.

Athen’s municipality economically collapses. Expect more in the future.

You are libertarian.

(H/T: GLP, SDA, Althouse, Borepatch, AG, MF)

The Collapse

XSplat asked, “what, EXACTLY, they mean by “society collapses”? (H/T: SAG)

Yesterday, I noted that government takeover and the collapse of the family from the “long march through culture” led to what you see in black America: high dependence on government, high violence, social problems, etc.

In response to a similar answer, he added:

“I want to know what happens to WHITE society. Show me a WHITE example.”

The trite answer is watch the riots in Greece and see what occurs to them over the next 5 years. There are already riots and they will likely get worse before they get better. The American collapse will be worse though, because there is no EU to bail the US out.

The not-quite-so-trite answer is Rome and the Dark Ages. Rome collapsed over centuries and Western civilization stagnated for centuries more. Collapse for the US will be different, because the US is separated by water from everybody but Mexico and Canada, and so has less of a problem of barbarians sacking them. But still, it’s one possibility.

The even-less-so-but-still-trite answer is that whites and non-whites are inter-mixed in most Western countries, so his point’s fairly irrelevant. If one group in society completely collapses, it negatively effects the other groups in society.

An almost-not-trite answer would be the Weimer Republic. Good times were had by all. The Soviet Union, it’s collapse, and Russia’s collapse into a corrupt oligarchy are another. Yob culture in Britain is another, and is not that far from the American ghetto.

I will come back to this and outline the likely scenarios for an answer that’s not trite, but first we will deal with other parts of his post.

****

Someone else provides him with an answer, which I think is partially correct, which he then follows up with:

“But what these future predictions miss is technology. Where we are today is the result of technology. Future technological changes will change what options we have for our future. How far off do you think biotech is from altering society? What will happen when making designer babies is cheap and readily available? When electronic implants can affect our emotions?”

I’m going to start with this, just to get the objection out of the way, so I can concentrate on the collapse.

Essentially what he is talking about is either post-scarcity and/or the singularity. I’ve written of post-scarcity before, and I believe it to be nearly inevitable; eventually we will pass the threshold of scarcity to where we do not need to “work”. The other concept is the singularity, the point where we reach superintelligence through either AI, the mind/machine interface, or biotechnology. We already have very primitive M/MA, AI, and biotech, just as we have primitive 3D printers, but the endpoint of the three is the singularity.

There’s a good chance we will reach the singularity. The most optimistic predictions I’ve seen is about 2045. Many experts have put it between 2050 and 2100. Others only say the distant future. Many, such as Steven Pinker, an intellectual I respect, doubt it will ever occur. I lean towards the more optimistic side, I’d take a wild guess at before 2100 simply because technology has generally tended to advance faster than most experts think, but I think there’s some wishful thinking in the earlier dates. Of course, the wild guess of some random guy on the internet is not exactly gospel.

I think post-scarcity will come well before the singularity simply because the mechanical is easier for man to master than the genetic, biological, electronic, and quantam. Post-scarcity is less discussed than the singularity, so the only projected date I’ve seen is 2050-75, but thbe post-scarcity from that prediction is a bit different from the post-scarcity I posited.

But anyway, let’s, for the sake of argument, say that post-scarcity will occur by 2050 and the singularity by 2080 (70 years from now, a common prediction).

The question then becomes, when is “the collapse”?

This is more difficult. The collapse, which is probably more accurately referred to as the end of the world as we know it, is a political belief of those on the alt-right, that is not accepted by most of the mainstream, so it’s less looked at by what we would term futurists. Despite this, there’s been some predictions. Patrick Buchanan, probably the best known of those predicting the Death of the West, posits it will occur by 2050, but has since wondered if it could occur by 2025. Mark Steyn’s After America didn’t give a date, but it’s obvious he expects it in the next few decades if there are no changes. If you ask anybody on the alt-right, they’ll probably have a prediction of some sort.

Outside the alt-right, Niall Ferguson has posited the beginning of the collapse of the American Empire within the next five years and Alternet posits it by 2025, but the collapse of empire is somewhat different from societal collapse, even if both are related.

The most important point is nobody really knows when the collapse will come, only that there is a good possibility of it. Just like nobody knows when post-scarcity or the singularity will come. Predicting the future accurately is extremely difficult, we can only look at current trends, extrapolate, prepare, and then take whatever chaotic occurrences come upon us.

But if we look at the predictions, 2025-2050 is earlier than 2050-2100. So, the majority opinion seems to be that the collapse comes first.

If the singularity or post-scarcity occurs, there will be no collapse. If the economy grows rapidly enough that it covers over any other problems we might have, there will be no collapse. If the collapse comes first, there will be some bad years before post-scarcity and it might delay or prevent post-scarcity.

The question is not will technology prevent the coming collapse, the question is which will hit first?

It is a race between science and economic progress on one hand and societal collapse on the other.

****

Wait, X-Splat’s talking of collapse due to family, you’re talking about collapse of empire, collapse due to debt, and economic collapse.

There’s no difference. It’s all related.

The collapse of family, the collapse of empire, the debt bomb, the growth of government, the housing bust, etc. are all the same collapse due to the same reason: they are all symptoms of the collapse of civil society and civic virtue. Civil society is what keeps a free society together and stops it from collapsing on itself. (A tyranny can keep society together through fear and violence, but only until someone else overthrows the tyrant). Civil society is the bonds that hold a community together and civic virtue are the values that keep society from ripping itself apart.

When civil society dies, charity dries up, family collapses, social capital disappears, churches and other traditional institutions die off, business become corrupt, society becomes corrupt, and self-organization withers. When civic virtue dies, people become corrupt, they vote themselves money at others’ expense, refuse to contribute to society, abandon family, stop volunteering, refuse public service in the military, take on huge unrepayable debt, become irresponsible, pursue decadence and hedonism, etc.

No society can survive the collapse of civic virtue and civil society and remain free.

The banging of sluts and the collapse of family are just one aspect of the greater collapse of civic virtue and civil society.

****

So what happens in the collapse?

The answer: that depends. There are simply to many variables to make any conclusive answers. I will give what I think are some of the likelier potentials.

(Note: I am going to focus on North American collapse, to reduce the scope. For the rest of the Western world, the answers are similar on the broad strokes, but many details might be different.)

1) Great Depression Part 2: The Great Recession turns into a Great Depression. The US sinks into a long economic malaise but still has enough civic virtue and civil society to get through it as a free nation. There are rough spots, poverty increases, there’s some minor violence and riots, and it’s tough on everybody, especially seniors for whom SS and Medicare have been drastically reduced, but the US continues to be a more-or-less free and functioning society. Eventually either pulls through or reaches economic scarcity.

This is the best of the collapse scenarios. There is no radical change to American life, just some very tough belt tightening and the occasional spot of violence. This is what blue-pill fiscal conservatives like Paul Ryan are trying to do and are failing at.

2) Brave New World: This is less a collapse than a drawn out decline. Big Brother slowly takes over and America loses its freedom. I don’t think America will slip into outright dictatorship, but democracy will become increasingly a formality rather than a reality, life will become increasingly less free, and the state will slowly replace civil society. The courts will gradually hand more power over to government and government will progressively control more of American life. Americans will essentially live in a gilded cage. Consumer goods and pop entertainment will keep most American’s sated. There will be some illusion of freedom; you will still be able to choose which brand of government approved video games you desire. You will still be free to read most books (except some of those that are “hateful” or “obscene”). You will be able to use the internet for pornography and whatnot, but some sites will be blocked.  Most people will be sated with their illusion of freedom and their consumer goods. Those that aren’t will either be jailed/put on probation for technical regulatory violations or will be given little outlets apart from society as a whole where they can be somewhat free of societal constraints (within reason) without impacting society as a whole (ex. the army). This is essentially the Bonobo Masturbation Society.

I think this is the most likely scenario. This is the Gramscian long march I talked of yesterday. The end game will eventually resemble something like Brave New World. It won’t be hellish; it will actually be somewhat pleasurable, but there will always be that thought in the back of your mind: “isn’t there something more?” and there will always be that edge of emptiness in your life, but, thankfully, the pills and VR will make it barely noticeable.

3) Demographic Violence: As the US economy worsens and people lose their government benefits as it can no longer afford to pay them, various groups will begin to engage in protest and violence. The well-off will separate themselves from it geographically, but the lower and middle classes will be engaged. This violence will take one of three forms: ideological, racial, or generational. Essentially, there will be a long, drawn-out series of riots and low-level violence.  If it’s ideological,it will occur primarily between conservatives and liberals and between fringe groups; it lead to further ideological segregation in society. Racial violence would occur between blacks, latinos, and whites, with Asians caught in the crossfire. Generational violence will occur as seniors protest the death of the social security and medicare they paid for their whole life and the younger victimize the elderly as blame for causing the collapse. Most likely it will be some combination of the three.

There will be violence either way, the question is what level of violence. In this scenario, society still functions, but violence, like the Rodney King Riots, Brehivik, or the English Riots will become much more common. Political protests become more common and often degrade into violence and rioting. This kind of violence will likely accompany any of the other scenarios to varying degrees. Eventually, this sorts itself out politically and economically with reforms or it degrades into revolution or civil war.

4) Revolution: A group revolts and takes control of the government. This could follow demographic violence, replace it, or be a part of it. What kind of society follows will depend on who does the coup.

I think this is highly unlikely. The US is too well-armed and ideologically, ethnically, and regionally divided for any single group to simply have a coup. If a coup occurs, it will most likely result in dissolution and/or civil war.

5) Balkanization and/or Civil War: Due either to demographic violence, revolution, or the reaching of some political or economic tipping point. The US dissolves itself; various states and/or regions balkanize, declare independence, and assert their own governance. This could be peaceful or violent. If done peacefully, it will not be too bad. People will move to whichever region they prefer and there will be some temporary economic and political disruption, but no real long-run problems. If done violently, it could tip into civil war. This could be relatively light war, such as in the books State of Disobedience or Empire, or it could be a major war to rival or surpass the American Civil War.

I think there’s a decent chance of dissolution. Most likely, if it does occur, it will come with some light violence. There will be some riots, a few massacres, and some firefights not really on the level of battles, that will cause the the states agree to dissolve more or less peacefully.

6) A Renewing War: A war in Europe occurs due to similar economic and political collapse. Or a war in Asia due to population imbalances, resource disputes, and ancient grudges. Or a war in the Middle East, because it’s the Middle East. Or a war against Mexico because as the drug war troubles slip out of control into full on civil war, which spills over into the US. Whatever the war, the US becomes involved, and unlike the limited wars of Iraq or Afghanistan, it reaches the level of (near) total war.  The masculine virtues reassert themselves. Unemployment disappears as the war gobbles up all available industry and manpower. Civic virtue and civil society are renewed as people handle the sacrifices of war. Men die en masse and become rarer; society realigns back towards patriarchy as female competition for men increases. Society is forged in the flame and returns renewed and invigorated.

This seems possible. It would also probably follow either #1 or #3 and would be the way past them. (Note: War could occur in other scenarios, but in those scenarios they would not have a renewing effect, it would simply be an adjunct to the rest).

Personally, I think #1 and #2 are the most likely collapse scenarios, with low-levels of scenario three involved in either of them, but none of the others are implausible. What happens depends on the circumstances of the collapse which I can not predict.

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Any of scenarios #1-5 will result in the end of American hegemony. The US will simply not be able to continue to act as the world police, destabilizing the rest of the world.

Europe will no longer be able to rely on the US’ protection and if the EU dissolves, might become unstable. China will no longer have a check to it’s power in Southeast Asia, while Japan will have to restart it’s own military. India and Pakistan will lose the US’ calming influence. The Middle East will become even more unstable without the US supporting Israel and keeping tabs on the Arab countries. Who knows what will Russia will do.

The UN and NATO will lose their hard power, so international emergency response and nation-building will collapse. The international aid system will collapse without US hegemony protecting it. Africa will become even more unstable than it already is.

The collapse of Pax Americana will have massive repercussions throughout the world and will lead to a large increase in instability and violence.

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If there are no changes to society as it stands and we continue on our current trajectory, the collapse will occur. What form it may take is an unanswerable question, but a free society not simply survive the combination of massive debt levels, mass dependence on the state, and the dissolution of civic virtue and civil society that is becoming the norm in the West.

But collapse is not inevitable. There’s numerous ways for it to be avoided and the Futurist has outlined a likely path out. All we need is to change the trajectory just enough to delay the collapse long enough for post-scarcity to occur.