Kind: captions
Language: en
men have fallen behind dramatically less
men are dating having sex or even just
making as much money as their parents
did social media dating apps blatant
theft of financial opportunity and a
social shift to shaming men for being
ambitious and aggressive have created an
environment where guys feel lost
hopeless and lonely here to talk about
it is Professor Scott
[Music]
Gallow for the first time in US history
a man 30 years old who's largely judged
by his financial success is not doing as
well as his parents what went wrong so
there's a variety of of things that have
created this these atmospherics
so um some of them societal some of them
biological some of them economic we have
men mature later their prefrontal cortex
is literally less developed and it's
getting worse for some reason girls are
going through puberty sooner men or boys
is later in addition with uh the second
most single parent households of any
nation in the world with the exception
of Sweden what you have is this
increasingly prevalent single point of
failure for when men come off the tracks
and that is they lose a male role model
so what's interesting is if you look at
a single parent household and it's
usually about 88% of the time it's a
mother taking care of
children uh the girls have similar
outcomes similar College attendance go
on similar incomes similar levels of
depression boys become much more likely
to be incarcerated much less likely to
go to college much more likely to be
depressed it ends up that while boys are
physically stronger girls are
emotionally and mentally much stronger
so you have uh some societal factors
that are producing a lot of emotionally
weak men I think you have an education
system that is biased against boys in
boys only schools will have twice as
many recesses
as co-ed schools if you think about the
ideal student organize pleaser sit still
do your homework only speak when spoken
to you're basically describing the
attributes that come easier to people
born as women we're now we used to be we
used to be 6040 male to female in
colleges 40 years ago now we're 6040 and
it's probably going to be closer to two
to one women two to one women for every
male that graduates from college because
men drop out at a greater rate it used
to be a third of jobs required a college
degree now it's
2/3 so you end up with this kind of
Perfect Storm where we're producing a
tremendous number of economically and
emotionally
unviable um men and then something that
also impacts women is our economic
policies over the last 40 years in my
view have been just an elegant transfer
of wealth from young to old so the two
biggest tax deductions in America are
mortgage interest rate tax deduction and
capital gains who owns stocks and homes
uh people my age who rents and makes
their money from sweat or current income
young people so 40 years ago 19% of GDP
was controlled by people under the age
of 40 in terms of their wealth that's
been cut in half to 9% the average 70y
old is 72% wealthier than they were 40
years ago the average person under the
age of 40 is 24% less wealthy cost of
living adjustment for Social Security
last year increased
9%
the child tax credit which eliminated
40% of child poverty which is remarkable
somehow manages to get stripped out of
the infrastructure bill because who
needs who needs that money kids who
don't vote and young people so I think
there's been a perfect storm of
biological societal and economic
transfers and then we didn't talk about
societal I think that men have been
getting mixed messages I think we've
done a great job lifting women up um
focusing in trying to address some of
the injustices and biases that women
have had to endure for a long time and I
wouldn't say we've overcorrected but I
think that people uh don't have a
sympathetic ear or Society doesn't have
a sympathetic ear uh to young men when
we talk about young women are non-whites
and the substantial challenges they
still face we talk about resources and
the requirement or the need for
government intervention and social
programs when we talk about young men
failing you start using words like they
need to level up or if they were only
more in touch with their emotions or we
use words like
accountability so there's a lack of
empathy for young men and then into that
void slipped in some very um negative
voices I think that was sort of thinly
failed thinly veiled misogyny so now um
the conversation hasn't been that
productive until the last few years and
I would argue it's getting much more
productive that people are actually that
the data is just so overwhelming four
times as likely to be addicted uh three
times as likely to kill themselves 12
times as likely to be incarcerated I
mean the numbers just can't be ignored
and now we're having I think a much more
productive conversation around potential
solutions for how we level up young men
as a means of leveling up an entire
younger generation who my in my opinion
for the first time America is
consciously leaving
behind what's changed in the dialogue
because I agree with you it's gotten a
lot better what's now included in the
dialogue that was being left out before
that's made it more
productive well there was a gag reflex
and that was U because people felt what
was going on and they saw what was going
on and uh we weren't addressing it
because people were uh worried about
there was a general view that if you
were prom man that it was a zero some
game and that that meant automatically
you were anti- women and you had some
voices enter the space that were just
basically telling you it's not your
fault you need to treat women like
property you need to go get a
superar and trade crypto and kind of be
the broest Bro in broville which sort of
inadvertantly meant not treating women
especially well and not embracing
education not embracing empathy not
embracing some of the key components of
what it means to be
successful and the conversation I would
say uh when I started talking about this
stuff probably four or five years ago my
inbox was littered with kind of
accusations that you're a misogynist and
what I think something we have to
embrace is that empathy is not a zero
some game civil rights did not hurt
white people it helped them gay marriage
did not hurt heteronormative marriage uh
it helped it and being empathetic
towards the plight and the statistics
around failing young men does not draw
from the very real concerns and empathy
and the progress that young women have
made and I would argue that there are
two groups that would like to see more
emotionally and economically viable
young men the first is women I mean how
many times have you heard I know all
these great women and they can't find a
date and two for my work the People by
far I get the most support from is one
cohort and that's mothers and it goes
something like this I have three kids
two daughters one son one daughter's at
pen the other's in PR in Chicago and my
son is in the basement vaping and
playing video
games so mothers have really kind of
stepped into this void and said look I
see it firsthand there is a difference
here and on the far left the far right I
think is somewhat weaponized masculinity
as a means of saying that that efforts
to elevate women or non-whites has gone
too far which I would argue is not true
and the far-left doesn't want to even
talk about it because their fear is that
if you start talking about even gender
you're somehow attacking the five or 10%
that non-binary and that's not true we
can all have empathy for each other we
can all celebrate the incredible
progress that women have made over the
last 40 years it's a wonderful thing and
we shouldn't do anything to get in the
way of that but there's a very unusual
Dynamic taking place and that is the
metaphor from Chris Williamson another
podcaster who's done a lot of great work
on this is he calls it the high heels
effect and that is metaphorically every
year women get taller more educated more
economically viable there are more
single women in the United States now
that own homes than single
men and meanwhile men are getting
shorter and shorter and shorter and 50%
of women state that won't date a guy
shorter than them I actually think it's
much greater than that it's just an
embarrassing thing to say so what you
have is a group of women who are getting
taller and taller and taller and men are
getting shorter and shorter and shorter
so there are fewer K in the eyes of
women viable mates this reduces
household formation it reduces birth
rates and that is uh starts an
intractable downward spiral in terms of
an economy that both Japan and Italy and
soon Russia and China are facing if you
don't have young people in household
formation there used to be 3.1 kids in
household 60 years ago now there's
1.9 so it has economic impact and also I
think it has a lot of impact just on
General happiness the majority
of I'm not saying you can't be happy
living your life as a single person I
was single for most of my adult life I
was very happy but I do think the most
rewarding things in life come from a
function of deep and meaningful
relationships and oftentimes that comes
from a relationship with a romantic
partner that you decide to have kids
with and I think there's a lot of young
men and women who feel like they don't
really have the same uh environment to
form that sort of relationship they
don't it's economically more challenging
for them um and there's a variety of
factors including other things we can
talk about onlay Danning that I think
make it even even more
difficult yeah I think to really tease
apart the issue we will certainly get
into that stuff for me looking at it it
is men and women exists in a dance and
people are not thinking from first
principles so when you start thinking
about okay men and women have co-evolved
together they have a role where they
each are both what I call the shout and
the echo so you are what you do the
shout and you are the echo what comes
back to you so I've heard you say this
and this is certainly true for myself uh
so much of my ambition was simply to get
laid uh and then in the beginning that
certainly got me moving and then when I
got married and was doing well in that
department I felt I had uh an obligation
to my wife to become the kind of man
that could continue to provide and
protect and so I ended up developing a
pretty I I was not raised with what I'll
call a super traditional outlook on what
masculinity was but I ended up finding
that as a way to um provide for her in
the way that I had promised her that I
would and that that just sort of led me
to uh becoming more aggressive becoming
more stoic uh acquiring skills as
rapidly as I could understanding what um
what part of the relationship I was
going to play when we we got married it
was very traditional so my wife grew up
a traditional Greek girl she has since
become an entrepreneur in her own right
and has just taken a totally different
path but when we got married she was a
housewife for almost a decade uh I went
out and earned an income and I watched a
really interesting Dynamic form between
the two of us where in the beginning she
did not plan to interface with the world
directly so it was through me that she
was going to get things done and so she
didn't think I was asking for enough or
pushing hard enough or work hard
whatever she would encourage me with her
feminine WS to get me to behave in ways
that she liked and look she was maybe
not even consciously aware of all of it
and we've always been high level
communicators that discussed all of this
but if she thought I needed to put in
more energy at work she would make that
known if she thought I should ask for a
raise she would make that known so on
and so forth and so that Dynamic of
behind every powerful man is a strong
woman I actually watched that play out
in the beginning
until she decided she was going to have
her own voice and step forward but that
beginning dynamic between the two of us
showed me a lot of the historical dance
between men and women where a woman was
largely going to be focused on uh
raising children just biologically
obviously that's a role they are
optimized for um and so now when we live
in a world where she can choose either
path she can go in and become an
entrepreneur as my wife has chosen to do
um or she can stay at and and the they
really function more as a unit and that
is what I feel is breaking down is right
now everyone is sort of running the race
on their own and to your point you now
get women are being far more successful
at what could be deemed a traditionally
masculine game and now men are beginning
to lose out at the traditionally
masculine game
um what do you think about that there's
a lot there so I think the what you
described in terms of your role and what
you're trying to bring to your
relationship I think that's a pretty
decent subtext or definition of
masculinity in a very crud legs of the
stool protector provider
procreator
and a romantic the prospect of a
romantic or a sexual relationship is
exceptionally motivating for a young man
uh that's why a lot of young men shower
it's why they actually have a plan it's
why they go to work it's why they stop
getting high and drinking so much during
the week because often times their
partner
their romantic or sexual partner will
say unless you get your [ __ ] together I
am leaving and also you begin these
instincts begin to kick in where you
want to take care of this person you
want to build a life together and you
want to be a great provider you want to
be a great protector and by the way that
attribute of masculinity is not
sequestered just to people born as men a
lot of women demonstrate wonderful forms
of masculinity I like to think I
demonstrate a lot of the attributes
normally associated with femininity
but to have an adult conversation around
this we have to have an adult
conversation in that
is somewhere between 5 and 10% of people
identify as um um as homosexual that
means about 90% identify as either
heterosexual or non-binary so it's okay
to talk about the majority of people are
going to be born with a certain
predilection or a certain bias or more
easily Embrace certain attributes than
people born as the other gender and I
don't think there's anything wrong with
that and what I'm telling or what I'm
trying to argue for and I'm trying to
write a book on masculinity is that men
need to lean into a modern form of
masculinity and there's nothing wrong
with that you brought up the motivations
for you being a good
provider My Success is a function of a
few things one the generosity of
California taxpayers in the region of
the University of California I went to
school where you live at UCLA and Burke
where my total tuition for S years of
school undergrad and grad was $7,000
total tuition and more importantly than
that the admissions rate at UCLA when I
applied was 76% this year it'll be 9%
and in exchange for their generosity
after spending 5 years smoking dope and
watching Planet of the Apes I got a 2.27
GPA from UCLA and what happened with
that 2.27
GPA Berkeley let me into graduate school
imagine that Berkeley one of the finest
institutions in the world let me in with
a 2.27 GPA and then I got my [ __ ]
together and I went on to do to do well
by most most metrics and the real
motivation uh the real motivating
factors were women first and foremost my
mom got very sick and it was just me and
her I was raised by a single mother who
lived and died a secretary and we didn't
have money and we were
underinsured and if you want to see the
harsh side of America there's a lot of
wonderful things about America I think I
think America becomes more like itself
every day and that is if you have money
it's a loving and gentle place if you
don't have money I think it's a
rapacious violent
place and it I saw that up close when my
mom got very aggressive cancer and we
were underinsured and I came home from
grad school to take care of my mom and I
couldn't take care of her we didn't have
any money I couldn't afford a nurse I
didn't know where to I couldn't take her
back to the hospital cuz we were
uninsured and the place they wanted to
send her was so vile I just couldn't do
it and it was incredibly emasculating
and I thought you know here I am I'm the
man you know light of my life took great
care of me and I can't take care of her
and it was humiliating and I decided
then and there I you can't decide to be
rich there's a certain X Factor to it
but I remember thinking I'm going to try
very very hard I'm going to get my [ __ ]
together and I'm going to throw
everything at this professionally
because I want to take care of my mother
and then the second thing is much less
noble or a little bit more crass but I
noted I noticed at a very young age the
guys who weren't that interesting had a
much broader set selection set of mates
if they had a lot of money and I was
very interesting I was very interested
in in having mating
opportunities and I realized that if I
wanted to add two points you know
everybody's on a scale right a character
looks whatever it is Success scale of 1
to 10 and men and women are judged kind
of with different inputs but when you're
a wealthy
guy you get to add two or three points
to your selection set and so I thought
one I'd really like to take care of the
person who's important to me my mother
and two I would like to have a broad
selection set of mat it was very
motivating for me uh but those are what
you
have especially with men when men don't
establish a romantic relationship and
now only onethird of men under the age
of 30 have a girlfriend two3 of women
under the age of 30 have a boyfriend
because they are dating older crazy
because they want more economically and
emotionally viable men so when you have
a whole cohort of young men who are not
going to college not having the same
economic opportunities and quite frankly
have no or little prospects for romantic
relationship you generate the most
dangerous person in the world and that
is a lonely
broke um young man that is any society
that's violent any society that has
revolutions any society that engages in
religious extremist Behavior has a dis
disproportionate number of this cohort
and we are producing way too many of
them in the United States and it
is you say well okay your hair is on
fire now but what about women women are
much better at finding places to give
and receive love even without the
prospect of a romantic relationship I'm
not saying they're not lonely I'm not
saying their loneliness is any any less
tragic but women don't pick up AR-15s
when they're lonely women don't get as
is involved in conspiracy theories as
men women have a much broader friend
Network without that they invest in and
they maintain and closer familiar bonds
when they don't have a romantic
relationship it's generally your wife
reminding you to call your mother it's
generally your wife saying oh we should
really get together with your friends or
they're much better at maintaining
there's this great
line in the movie Magnolia I forget his
name he's he's he he said he's this kind
of pathetic guy and he says I have so
much love to give but I don't know where
to put it and women are much better at
figuring that out they're much better at
figuring out places to put and receive
love without the prospect of a romantic
relationship young men without that
Prospect and that motivation generally
become shitty citizens they're less
they're less likely to go to college
they're less they're more prone to
conspiracy theory they're much more
likely to believe some Carnival Barker
telling them that it's women's or
non-whites or immigrants fault they
become in some they become shitty
citizens and so unless we can massively
invest in a younger generation and give
them more opportunities and I don't
think we want to go to male affirmative
action I just think it would be too
politicized unless we make the requisite
Investments and we can do this we've
done it before to to have a dramatic
step change upgrade in the economic
viability of all young people including
young men we're not going to have as
much household formation and we're going
to have too many lonely young people
especially too many lonely young men the
big Tech Community has
made trillions of dollars trying to
convince young people that they can have
a lowrisk low entry reasonable fact
assembly of Life via algorithms and
screens don't put in the hard work and
email people on LinkedIn and network and
get certification to have a real job
just trade stocks on Robin Hood or buy
salana on
coinbase oh you do you really need
friends well you have friends on Discord
and Reddit oh it's humiliating to go to
go to a bar and work out and figure out
the skills and the rejection and the
humiliation of trying to find a romantic
or a sexual partner well you got you
porn and now you have an AI girlfriend
and soon you're going to have a sex doll
so you have a group of people young
people especially young men who are
exiting and sequestering from what is
the most rewarding thing in life and
that is deep meaningful friendships
professional relationships and romantic
relationships the reason why romantic
comedies are 2 hours not 15 minutes is
that the real victory in life the really
rewarding things in life the reason we
live life all of those things have one
thing in common they're really hard it
is really hard to establish
relationships and mentorships and a
reputation is a good co-worker and
manager at work it is really hard to
establish a great network of friends and
invest and feel that collegiality and
that joy and it is really hard as a
young man to get your [ __ ] together and
be attractive enough that you can you
have the confidence to endure rejection
the only thing I can guarantee anyone
who who wants to succeed professionally
and romantically is rejection that's it
that's the only thing I can guarantee
you and unless you develop the skills to
endure that and then become that person
that people want to be
with I worry we have this this group of
kids or young men who have literally
just fallen off the matap they don't
develop professional or social skills
and then they get into their mid or
their late 20s they're still living at
home with a majority of people over the
age of 30 are no living with romantic
partner roommate they're living at home
and they never catch up they never catch
up they turn into they spend the rest of
their lives alone and they never really
get to experience that victory that
warmth that friendship that love that
that many of us got to experience in an
America that quite frankly just invested
more in
youth man this is uh this is a really
fascinating problem exactly why I am
obsessed with people thinking from first
principles so you saying that um you
know a lot of this stuff is going to be
really hard and right now technology is
helping people optimize for doing things
that are easy this is the danger sign I
want to flash to people if you're going
to think from first principles you have
to first ask what is the Wet Works that
determines how we feel about the world
so you're interpreting everything
through your body your mind obviously
but your mind is in such concert with
whether it's your microbiome or whatever
but you you are a what I will call A A
flesh based AI that is going to respond
to adapt to and learn from its
environment so what is the nature of the
human mind whether male female doesn't
matter just what is the nature of the
human mind and I think when people talk
about um things have gone wrong and we
want to go somewhere new it's like okay
what exactly are you optimizing for and
for me anyway my North Star is to um
create as much human flourishing as
possible and reduce as much human
suffering as possible now I'll round
that to fulfillment so I think people
should be optimizing for fulfillment and
I think fulfillment has a recipe that's
based on the evolutionary reality of the
way the human mind works so I think the
human mind is optimized for the just
hundreds of thousands of years where
surviving was brutally difficult and if
evolution only has Pleasure and Pain as
levers to move your behavior in the
direction most likely to cause you to
survive long enough to have kids that
have kids which is all nature is trying
to do then it's going to say hey you did
a really hard thing feel good about that
hey you you're just sitting around don't
feel good about that because if you're
just sitting around you're not doing
anything you're not pushing yourself you
don't feel exertion I know you've said
if you slip into depression or if you
were advising somebody that does uh that
sweating is one of the things you
recommend just like get out there and do
a thing now the reason I think that
works is because Evolution had to
incentivize you to go out and do hard
things to face danger to take risks to
improve yourself and so there are all
these evolutionary pressures from a I am
striving to be fulfilled standpoint to
work hard so my recipe for fulfillment
looks like this you must work hard to
acquire a set of skills that you about
for whatever reason that allow you to
serve yourself and the group and if you
don't do any of that including just not
working hard you will have a profound
sense of disease and so I look at Modern
Life and I'm like this is utterly
fascinating we have killed ourselves for
God knows how many centuries to build a
perfect Walled Garden where there are no
Predators we don't have to worry about
anything and when you get there because
of
Evolution's manipulation of of the human
brain it doesn't feel good and so
suddenly you have to put yourself back
in a position where you have to do hard
things uh that you have to have a goal
you have to be striving for something
making progress and if you're not doing
that you don't feel
good makes
sense yeah so this is where I now then
start asking okay technology which
you've touched
on what is it doing that's creating the
downward spiral and or contrib to it if
it isn't the sole um thing because I
think you've laid out three very
important factors uh but when I look at
Society what it's doing and Technology
pornography certainly comes to mind if
you had to rank order the technological
problems what rough order would you put
them in is it pornography first is it um
wasting time on video games what what
are the problems created by
Tech uh so so first off let me start
with um stuff that probably there's more
alarm than actual
harm uh video games have been shown it
would be logical if you see these
multiplayer shooter games to think okay
that's what's causing shootings mass
shootings and all the research shows
that that's in fact not the case and for
a lot of boys it's a means of
socialization it's a means of relaxation
for them obviously there are limits to
it I notic that when my son's on screens
too much he just for lack of a better
word turns into an [ __ ] and if if if
he's used to being entertained all day
long when you don't entertain him or he
doesn't get that action reaction he'll
do something to get a reaction
regardless of whether that's good or bad
behavior that's just true of screens in
general what I think is most
damaging is uh polarization I think our
discourse has become too coarse if you
look at
America relatively speaking America I
would would argue has never been
stronger we're food independent we're
energy independent uh China's neither of
those things you can maybe argue they
food independent but China can't get
into a war an aggressive action because
there's so many choke points that could
cut off their energy Supply we produce
more energy than we consume we produce
more food than we consume no one is
lining up for Russian or Chinese
vaccines if you think about the most
breakthrough technology creating the
most shareholder value it's AI 98% of it
was not only invented being captured in
the United States the majority of it is
within a 7 mile radius of SFO
International Airport our universities
are the best in the world when the
conflict breaks out in the Middle East
we can send two carrier strike forces
that can deliver the violence of a you
know a third or the fourth biggest
nation in the world which hopefully
cauterizes it from becoming a national
conflict or a regional conflict you know
we're our inflation is the lowest in the
G7 while our growth is amongst the
highest our unemployment is a near
record lows the our markets are record
highs I mean there isn't a nation that
wouldn't kill for our problems right now
and yet we don't like each other and yet
we see each other as our enemies about
45% of of Democrats are worried their
kid is going to marry a republican
people are talking to their neighbors
less the number the number of people who
who would vote for an autocrat as long
as it was their autocrat is 25% in each
party a quarter of Americans would be
fine with an autocrat who was elected
was that how that question was posed
like are you okay with an autocrat or
they describe something that you read as
an autocrat I need to know how terrified
to be yeah I don't know the market
research semantics but uh the wording
but it was something along the lines of
if it was a Democrat would you be
comfortable by this person getting
elected at all means possible even if it
meant election interference in other
words oh God see that freaks me up would
you will I think a court of Democrats
and Republicans would be would tolerate
election interference as long as their
guy or gy was
that yeah well I think you're seeing
that I think you're I well I think
you're seeing a lot of it especially on
the Republican side but anyways I'm I'm
biased here we don't like each other I
think in addition what you have is I
mean you have teen depression and
childhood depression especially acute
among girls Instagram lack of
self-esteem I mean imagine you're
younger than me but you probably grew up
imagine never being able to leave the
high school cafeteria I got to come home
and relax and I I didn't no one was
evaluating me now these kids if you
don't get invited to a party you not
only have to deal with humiliation to
that which I dealt with a lot but I
didn't have to watch it play out in real
time on Instagram oh God there's just so
much in addition with boys bully
physically and verbally girls bully
relationally and we're seeing a lot of
girls have now these nuclear weapons in
their hand in the form of a
phone and they can go into the room with
their phone one of the things I do with
my kids are not allowed to go into their
room with their phone
um very smart and they can go down a
rabbit hole and then these companies
that have absolutely no regulation on
them will have algorithms that help them
scale they're not malicious people but
they're what i' call aoral people and a
14-year-old girl in the UK gets sent the
following emails from meta and from
Pinterest here are some images on
suicide we thought you might find
interesting and they're images of pills
noes and razor blades this is sent to a
14-year-old girl from a one of the 10
most valuable companies in the world so
teen
depression um coarseness of our
discourse misinformation that gives
people the wrong um misleading
information around our elections or
vaccines uh concentration of power you
know this is you could go down a rabbit
hole in terms of income inequality I
also think that um more generally in the
biggest threat of AI if we think about
technology is just the increase in
loneliness one out of seven men don't
have a single friend one out of four men
can't name a best friend women uh don't
report numbers nearly a stark women are
much better at maintaining friendships
but I worry that being online especially
AI with AI girlfriends and these
algorithms uh per our previous comments
are going to increase loneliness so you
know pick your poison a cooning of our
discourse uh reduction in faith of our
institutions misinformation around
healthc care around health are around
elections uh teen depression and
suicidal ideation and generally speaking
loneliness those are the downsides I
also need to just say I do think
technology has created a tremendous
amount of economic value I think it's
made a lot of people's lives
better um there's some real upsides I
don't think you would press a button and
have it all disappear I think we are net
gainers from technology the problem is
with the word net and that is because we
are net gainers we don't hold these
companies accountable we make a decision
on someone or a company and say if it's
a net good it shouldn't be held to the
same standards that we held previous
generations of people and companies so I
think fossil fuels are a net good I
think pesticides are a net good but we
have an FDA and we have an EPA and for
some reason we've decided with
technology there should be no similar
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code yeah it's uh this one scares me so
I agree with everything you're saying
and I also think that with social media
which is effectively the transmission of
information you are going to run into as
long as it's my autocrat um so I am
super distressed by how easy it is to um
manipulate the information that people
see at an algorithmic level and yet I
understand that there's so much
information even just from the people
that you follow you have to have an
algorithm so uh then the question
becomes okay how would we set up a body
that is regulating that in a way that um
I here's my sort of I haven't thought
about it enough take first Do no harm uh
so creating algorithms that first Do no
harm I think I'm having heard you talk
about ageg gating it I'm probably more
comfortable with that than I am as a
knee-jerk reaction to the idea of
anybody body um governmental body being
able to control what we think is and
isn't okay um so I agree on the problem
not entirely sure how solvable it is and
so my instinct is just letting kids have
it that one scares me now I don't have
kids so this is very much uh easy for me
to say and I know it must be brutally
difficult for a parent to try to keep it
out of their kids hands um what's your
take on that in terms of if you could
press a button governmental body or uh
that um regulates this or just kids
before they're whatever 16 18 uh they
don't have
it yeah you couldn't you couldn't do it
under the age of 18 I don't even think
you get away with it under the age of 16
I don't see any reason why a real upside
to kids being allowed on social media
under the age of 14 I mean if you think
about
Instagram it really starts from a place
of
perversion and that is the algorithms
are going to encourage young people
especially young women to pose in very
sexualized
positions with with very provocative
clothing such that they can be evaluated
by their peer group and strange men all
over the world I mean it's just it's
quite frankly it's just a little bit
[ __ ] up and the amount of harm it does
it it does create some communication
some but the number of high schoolers
that see their friends every day has
been cut in half just in the last 10
years and I think some of is they think
well I'll just I'll just snap them or
I'll go on Insta and they become I saw
this sort of play out in real time I
made the mistake of filming my kid doing
a handstand my oldest one I think it was
about
12 and he did a handstand on the beach
and he said can you post it to YouTube
and I said sure So he uploaded it to
YouTube and created an account and he
got a like and someone said great job
and I just saw something connect in his
brain and for the next 24 hours he was
saying to me can we check YouTube for
more comments because your ability to
modulate affirmation and love from
others or concern or whatever it is is
very difficult when you're young your
brain's just forming and you're just
becoming kind of a socially aware animal
and then and then a comment
was this kid clearly has never taken a
gymnastics class and has no
coordination and then you saw another
connection happen and he wanted to see
the other comments every 10
minutes and I mely thought this just
isn't good for the forming brain it just
isn't good and generally speaking and I
don't know if you how much this you
get young people need watering they need
warmth they need security they need love
they need
reinforcement and they do need
guardrails and there's something about
these social platforms when you're adult
the raw unfiltered push back immediate
reaction you know there's there's a good
element to that that I I think is good
for people but a young person I think
it's mostly like 90 um% bad because what
you have the Gestalt online and I don't
know if you've experienced this when
people come up to me I get I track it
about one and a half times a day when
I'm out someone approaches me just says
Hey senior work and the next 30 seconds
to three minutes are lovely they're nice
they say h how they've been introduced
to my content they're super
complimentary they tell me something
about
themselves it's just lovely makes my day
every day a stranger comes up and kind
of makes my day
online it is not the
same I have people calling me I've been
very outspoken on Israel so people call
me Prof
genocide and I don't even know if this
is a real person or a bot I have people
say really vile things really vile
things and I'd like to say oh it just
rolls right off me you know I'm such a
baller I don't care it doesn't it
bothers me some sometimes I've had I've
had weekends
ruined
and the the
general
malice people bring online in Anonymous
formats and also you don't know if it's
a bad actor if I were the gru or the CCP
I would just have algorithms trying to
get people Americans to hate each other
I think that's absolutely the easiest
way to diminish our standing in the
world is to get us when the settlers
came into North America they didn't they
didn't immediately take on the Native
Americans they got them fighting each
other they planted rumors and they
encouraged them to kill each other and
then they came in for cleanup if I were
China and I couldn't beat America
kinetically and I had a I had a an
interest in diminishing them
competitively nationally I would just
set loose millions of algorithms they
got people bickering and fighting and
saying mean things to each other and
starting fights it's like when you're in
fourth grade and a couple kids have
words and everyone surrounds them and
goes fight fight fight and pushes them
towards each other imagine that times a
billion that's what these algorithms are
doing online and if you're old you
should be able to modulate it maybe it
takes a toll on your mental health it
was taking a toll on mine so I got off
of Twitter I thought Twitter has become
just such it's become the sewage system
for a Cess pool I thought it has just
gotten so ugly and so angry I don't I'm
no longer getting as much the downside
is greater than the upside I can
modulate it I don't think a 13-year-old
girl or boy can modulate it so I'd like
to see ageg gating I don't I don't think
there's a lot of downside to ageg gating
we Agate the military pornography
alcohol
cigarettes content I mean I couldn't get
into to see the I had to sneak in to see
The Exorcist when I was kid we're
supposed to be 17 why on Earth wouldn't
we age gate social media yeah it's
interesting this is the thing that that
really scares me about technology and
full disclosure I am a techno Optimist
I'm about as optimistic as you're going
to get I wrote a whole comic book about
this set in the future in a world that I
think is actually going to come to
fruition where Ai and Robotics meet
people begin augmenting themselves uh
and in that my pitch is that technology
is actually the good guy and it's the
reactionary people that are going to
create the problems how however like if
you're not being polyana you really have
to recognize that there is a terrifying
truth to the velocity and volume of
information that people are exposed to
the human mind has a very difficult time
holding on to nuanced arguments and so
if you give somebody a catchy enough
slogan to repeat and then as an
algorithm figure out which way they lean
and you just feed them more of that um
and again this is something I've heard
you say that outrage sells way more than
sex and so if you can get people into an
outrage Loop uh you've really got them
and my thing going back to First
principles if you understand that's the
way your mind works hopefully you at
least as an individual can avoid falling
into the Trap but and this actually I'm
very interested to hear what you think
about this I have a whole spiel about I
think people should distrust their
emotions I don't think just because you
feel it you should act upon it I think
people should have goals and say this is
my goal which I hope is Honorable uh you
have an honorable goal and then it's
does this emotion move me closer or
farther away from that goal uh take
being in a marriage so I've been married
now to the same woman for 21 years
together 23 and man there are times
where she makes me mad and I think if I
am to lash out and just trust my anger
then this is not going to move me
towards my goal of having a thriving
emotional compassionate relationship
with my wife and so I put that in check
I distrust it and say hey it's possible
in fact I I have a thesis about when you
get angry someone's probably treading on
your insecurities and so me getting mad
is probably me just lashing out because
she's touched on an insecurity anyway
one of the things that I just see people
celebrating themselves for and others
for is you feel it and you should
express it and I am hugely skeptical of
that based on remember my North Star I
want human flourishing which I will
Define as people moving towards
fulfillment uh so I think people have to
really be careful but when you have the
that velocity and volume of information
coming over social media and okay now
we're getting into something I don't
know if I've ever said this out loud
before everything has a name every uh
every way that somebody could be like
you're ning God that's a terrible
example but you get the idea like every
way of being has a name and so
everybody's just like that's
narcissism uh and by putting it in a box
they're no longer thinking critically
about it that's misogyny and everything
goes into a box and once it's in the Box
we know we can dismiss it rather than as
you said earlier having an adult
conversation um that freaks me out so
when I think about navigating social
media
well I'm not
optimistic the only way go
ahead well yeah I'm I'm not I I will say
I agree with you I'm an optimist around
technology too I just I do think um
so just to go to Solutions there's
something called section 230 that
basically inoculates or immunizes all
social media platforms from the same
liability if if they could reverse
engineer this podcast and show
statistical evidence that girls started
engaging in self harm on a regular basis
after listening to this podcast you'd be
in a world of hurt you'd have a class
action suit against you it would be so
scary and so economically ruinous that
this podcast would either go out of
business business or quickly pivot to
putting in place the technology to solve
whatever was causing self- cutting or
self harm among
girls we decided that these nent
Technologies this law was written I
think 26 years ago should not be subject
to the same scrutiny as every other
media platform that makes no sense any
longer so for example if you were to say
any content that is algorithmically
elevated is no longer protected by 230
they would be a lot more cautious about
this type of content they might put in
place more they might invest more in
their safety teams so I think there's a
lot that can be done that wouldn't even
be what I'd call um additional
regulation but just taking away
regulation if you will that somehow
creates them as a protected a protected
class but when you're starting to talk
about AI I mean things are going to get
you know things could get very scary
very fast but I agree with you I'm
largely a technology Optimist I think
it'll be wonderful but regulation has
been key to you know we have emission
standards where you're not allowed to
spray your food with certain things one
of the things I like about the UK is
there's about 1,200 pesticides and
preservatives and hormones they're not
allowed to put in the food here and my
orange juice goes bad a little bit
sooner but I can taste the difference
and I think over the long run it's
probably good for me might be a little
bit more expensive but I just bet it's
better for me so I think I I agree with
you I'm a technology Optimist but I'm
also worried that we're so fascinated by
technology and we have we suffer in the
United States from what I'd call an
idolatry of
innovators that because there's a lack
of religion in people's lives and I'm an
atheist I'm not what I call someone who
talks about the importance of religion
but Church attendance and the Reliance
on a super being declines as a nation
becomes wealthier it's much much less
prevalent than it was just 50 60 years
ago in the United States and into that
void has slept uh has slipped our
new uh Jesus Christ and that's
technology innovators magic feels
mystical it's hard to understand these
people are compelling they make
trillions of dollars we're all very
drawn to them so we decide that our new
Jesus Christ are Elon Musk and Steve
Jobs and we don't hold them or their
companies to the same standards as other
companies and I think that's dangerous I
don't think because we assume that we
keep waiting for their better angels to
show up and the reality is in a capital
Society where you have better health
care can take care of your parents and
your kids that reference broader
selection set of mates people like you
laugh at your jokes you can help elect
the next president when you have a lot
of money the temptation of capital
Society to aggregate wealth is so great
that almost every CEO will make a series
of what I call
Micro
rationalizations and get to a point
where they're sending emails with newses
and pill and razors and we keep hoping
their better angels are going to show up
and guess what they don't they don't and
they're not going to because we've put
in place an incentive system that
encourages them to ignore it or to water
it down or to delay an opus skate right
I think Cher samber is probably a good
person she was consistently telling the
world we need to do better we're proud
of the progress she was the heat shield
for all the damage that meta was leving
on our youth and quite frankly the world
and a lot of vulnerable groups so we
have in the
US absence of
Regulation and absence of standards and
way too much idolatry of innovators into
the dollar and the result is a sector
that is arguably the most influential
sector in
history it's just the wild west at this
point and they would argue well that's
how you how you innovate I think there's
some truth to that but the majority of
industries that have grown really fast
do have some sort of Standards or
regulation and they will claim well
these are great products and their cost
is free they're free you know Google's
free Facebook's free and I would argue
the the economic cost of being a parent
trying to raise emotionally healthy
mentally strong kids the cost to
democracy wondering what if what you're
seeing is a deep fake of Biden following
or of Nancy Pelosi drunk you know or
wondering if this vaccine is actually
going to alter your DNA I think every
day the costs go up that have been
leving on our society is a function of a
lack of regulation on big TCH
okay so uh I think that's a very
eloquent argument certainly sets the
table for the problem um we've got the
daughters in school doing well we've got
the son in the basement playing video
games and vaping what's the strategy for
making him a productive member of
society uh so I don't think it's any
Silver Bullet I think it's a variety of
solutions um one I would and this is
Richard Reeves idea who wrote kind of
the landmark book on the topic called of
boys and men so some of his ideas are in
here but I would red sure boys I would
start Boys in kindergarten at 6 and
girls at 5 they just mature at different
Paces I would try and get more men back
into primary and uh high school
education there are more female fighter
pilots per capita than there are male
kindergarten teachers you can now go
through if you live in a single parent
household you can go through all the way
through high school and never really
have a male role model so try and get
more men back into um primary education
a massive investment in vocational
programming I don't know if you're old
enough to remember wood shop metal shop
and auto shop of course but there were
just a bunch of guys who just weren't
going to go to college but you know what
they were really [ __ ] talented they
knew how to fix [ __ ] they were
handy and they they kind of got into
wood they were the guys hanging out at
wood shop and making stuff and repairing
cars
and in the American economy the real
economy that guy with a one or twoe
apprenticeship or that gal and it's
about 802 male to female that that guy
or gal th