Impersonal Tyranny

Generational politics are useless, for the most part, but you can see certain trends when comparing generations. Marriage and fertility rates are the two best examples. Go back to the generation that fought the Great War and you see very high marriage rates, even among blacks, high fertility rates and low illegitimacy rates. Examine subsequent generations and you see how all of those measures changed. The childless urbanite cat lady was many generations in the making.

You can tease out something similar by looking at how people ruled over people in the past versus the present day. A century ago, most men were directly ruled by other men in their daily lives. This is not about political structures, although that was often true, but rather the interpersonal relations of daily life. Men worked for other men. Whether it was in a factory, at the docks, in agriculture or anywhere else, men worked for men in a very direct and personal way. They had a boss who bossed them around.

A man working on the docks, unloading ships, would show up for the daily muster and a supervisor would assign him to a gang. He and the other men in the gang would be directed by some other man. Correction was in the form of yelling and threats. If there was some confusion, the man in charge took control and told the other men what they should be doing. There was no committee that issued a bland directive or a bit of software that compelled a certain type of behavior.

That is a big difference compared to today. While most people have a boss in their work place, the boss has no real authority. He is just a conduit for company policy. He gets trained in people skills, the sorts of passive-aggressive cajoling that passes for management skills in the modern corporation. Increasingly, he does not actually manage his people. He uses software to measure productivity and issues bland e-mails to his staff. He measures compliance with the software system.

This is most obvious in a warehouse facility. In the old days, men would pick pack and stack items in the warehouse, at the direction of a supervisor. If they screwed up or screwed off, the boss would yell at them. Today, they are directed by an algorithm that guides their work. A hand held corrects their mistakes in real time and provides structure to their movements. Software tracks their productivity. The people inside an Amazon facility are ruled by robots, not men.

This is not just the result of technology and the drive for efficiency. A big driver is the declining personal skills of modern people. Each generation becomes less secure in confronting their fellow humans. A century ago, the boss enthusiastically corrected his people and his people just accepted it. Getting reamed out by the boss was just a part of life on the job. Today, getting corrected by the boss could very well result in counseling sessions for both parties.

You see the generational aspect to this on the campus. This story about the University of Missouri monitoring their students like pets is a good example. Within living memory, instructors took attendance and confronted the tardy and chronically absent. Since neither side of that transaction in the current age could withstand the emotional strain of such a confrontation, software will do the job. The students will happily comply, preferring to be ruled by their mobile devise.

This is a dynamic, of course. As technology allowed businesses, for example, to improve error rates, they began to subtly select for different types of people. The hands-on, direct style of management slowly fell out of favor.  Similarly, the best people to hire as workers were those comfortable using technology. Each generation was more tuned to the impersonal styled than the prior generation. This has continued over a few generations to where we are now.

Where we are now, however, is a curious place. Spend time on a college campus and some things jump out at you. One is the students are surprisingly compliant. The days of college pranks and rebellion are largely over, especially at the elite colleges. The students are consumed with adhering to the rules, as well as currying favor with their human superiors. The woke rage heads get headlines, but college life is now mostly a culture of banal conformity.

It has also made young people socially awkward. Young people have grown up interacting with one another through the medium of technology. Participation in sports, for example, is at all-time lows. Free play is unheard of today. Instead, the young generation has been raised to have a robot master gently nudging them along, even in their interactions with their fellow humans. One consequence has been the sharp decline in sex. It turns out that socially awkward weirdos have less sex.

A preference for impersonal rule and the collapse of interpersonal skills does not bode well for the future of western society. Prisons function along these lines. The guards are rule-following functionaries in a system. The system is designed to reduce socialization among the inmates, in order to maintain control and reduce conflict. A society built on such principles will inevitably lead to a similar authoritarianism. After all, there are no elections inside a prison.

That may be what we are seeing with the rise of the tech giants. The old organizational systems of liberal democracy no longer fit a people, afraid of one another, but comfortable with machines. Instead of a revolution and new political order, the machines are simply filling the vacuum. The politicians no longer have the will to create and enforce rules, so the tech giants have their robots do it. Again, most young people prefer it. They want the machines running their lives.

It has always been assumed that if mankind is going to off itself, it will be through the accidental use of technology. Something like a nuclear war or a man-made plague are the most popular options. It may be that our demise will simply be due to technology dehumanizing us to the point where we no longer have enough interest in one another to bother mating. Instead of fire, it will be ice, the icy stare of people looking at one another through the lens of technology.


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Tyler, the Portly Politico
4 years ago

A powerful, sobering piece. I’m tempted to print it up and slip copies covertly into the boxes of my colleagues. I teach at a small private school in the rural South, and even in that relatively conservative environment I’m witnessing some of these trends. Students are completely disengaged–why learn about history when they have thousands of games at their fingertips? We couldn’t even bring a Game Boy to school. It’s interesting to note that many teachers are now requiring students to take notes with a pen and paper.

You’re doing yeoman’s work, Z Man. God Bless.

Exile
Exile
Member
Reply to  Tyler, the Portly Politico
4 years ago

Note-taking is a huge plus, a natural antidote to the electronic dyslexia we suffer from phones and computers. You retain much more information in a meaningful, organized and useful state after taking notes by hand. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t reported better results when making detailed handwritten notes, from kids raised on cellphones to guys my age who grew up without computers etc.. Homeschoolers & tutors of the future should keep this in mind. Retention and comprehension from screens is spotty by comparison.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Tyler, the Portly Politico
4 years ago

I’d also suggest having kids (all of us, really) use the old outline method for writing a paper. These days, people just start writing without taking some time to organize their thoughts. Back in the day, if you wanted to change around the contents of a paper, you literally had to re-write the damn thing. It was a pain. As a result, before you ever started typing, you organized your notes and worked out a detailed outline. This benefit of this was a paper with a clear thesis and supporting evidence that flowed together in a coherent way. If you… Read more »

Carrie
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
4 years ago

I agree with that, Citizen.
And to add perspective: apart from home-schooled children or children who have anti-technology parents (bless them), it’s nearly impossible to attempt this goal in a modern-day gubmit school classroom.
Even the way the kids are [not] taught to properly hold a pencil is scary.

Screwtape
Screwtape
Reply to  Tyler, the Portly Politico
4 years ago

Atrophy may indeed kill us. Being that we are physical beings it shouldn’t be so novel to think that exercising physical connectivity and the associated feedback loops is essential to becoming a thriving being – and people. Yet I suspect that not so far off “studies” like the ones we see today will drag out long understood truths as novel discoveries thanks to groundbreaking ¡science! But instead of affirming our position in the physical world these studies are more anthropological, like passing tributes to what has been lost in favor of a life of perpetual buffering known as progress. Truth,… Read more »

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  Screwtape
4 years ago

Screwtape,

You’ve got a way with words and a bard lives within you. Always enjoyable.

miforest
miforest
Reply to  Tyler, the Portly Politico
4 years ago

you are doing god’s work too tyler . I wrecked my retirement to send my brood to private religious ed,. our pub schools are max pozzed . They are adults now , and I feel like I got my money’s worth and would do it again.
Men like yourself who go into teaching for the right reasons and a great asset.

Chris_Lutz
Member
4 years ago

I’ll blame a lot of it on the feminization of the workplace and the 60’s-70’s sexual revolution. Add on the 90’s movement towards everyone is a winner and you have today. First, the only way a female workplace can operate is with exact rules. Otherwise it becomes an emotional train wreck. Add it that after spending all day with women, a lot of guys are happy to have some time away from them and you start to see a lot of the isolation. Second, the sexual revolution destroyed the standards and mores of dating. If you don’t know the rules,… Read more »

Tarstarkusz
Member
Reply to  Chris_Lutz
4 years ago

The “sexual revolution” was one of the most destructive things to ever happen to us. Most of it was being pushed by weirdos and freaks, especially in academia. Had the alleged right not been taken over by weirdos in the same time frame, they could have worked to put it back in the bag early on, like in the 70s.

Rogeru
Rogeru
Reply to  Chris_Lutz
4 years ago

“Add it that after spending all day with women, a lot of guys are happy to have some time away from them and you start to see a lot of the isolation.”

This is true, I’m sick of women generally. Fortunately, I’ve been married for over a decade and don’t have to date, but I feel sorry for those who do.

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Chris_Lutz
4 years ago

Men needing excuse the expression “male only spaces” is a normal thing whether it be Men Hut, bar or Bund. Its only recently that we’ve tried to pathologize this , mainly I’d guess to control men. Well its worked decently well with the handy side effect of basically starting the end of civilization through lack of interest or ability to sustain it and these days (possibly lowest fertility ever) not even being interested in family formation or child bearing. In fairness as our host noted once machines got to a certain point, male utility declines and lower utility means lower… Read more »

Glenfilthie
Glenfilthie
Member
4 years ago

I’m good with the tech too. I retain emails and electronic time management records like a demon, and never operate behind closed doors. You never know what an emotional snowflake or devious femcnut will accuse you of. I actually got accused of bullying employees when I promised a customer I’d make some things right that they screwed up. Seriously – I got written up and the whole nine yards. I told HR to FOAD, called the CEO with the details and asked him if we needed to lawyer up. He just smiled, told me to relax and he’d make the… Read more »

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Glenfilthie
4 years ago

Sounds like Alphabet has a problem.

Member
Reply to  Glenfilthie
4 years ago

There hasn’t been much worse for the work force than the enormous expansion of the HR department. Overwhelmingly staffed by women, completely useless for productivity and generally a huge pain in the ass that specializes in making rules requiring you to hire more HR staff.

SebastianX1/9
4 years ago

One of the best essays you’ve published. As an extroverted GenXer, it is practically impossible for me to talk or flirt or banter with Millennials. They are ALL nerds. From Bart Simpson to Milhouse in one generation. For someone like me, it’s incredibly alienating.

Whitney
Member
Reply to  SebastianX1/9
4 years ago

Also Gen-X here and this is so true. Just the pleasant little banter that you have with people you cannot have with these people. They look uncomfortable and then look back at their phone

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  Whitney
4 years ago

I have become an odd antiquarian. I have the ingrained habit of calling other adults Sir, Miss or Ma’am. I’ve found through experience, particularly with men, you get good results. The honorific will usually engender mutual respect, or the man will rise to the politeness or you know you are dealing with a clod if they don’t. A couple of months ago I had to have a small group of late teen/early 20ish men move as a group. “Gentlemen, please move over there.” I got bewildered immobility. Thinking they hadn’t heard me… “Men, I need you to move 30 feet… Read more »

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Penitent Man
4 years ago

Giggling? Now that gave me the shivers.

Drake
Drake
Reply to  SebastianX1/9
4 years ago

As a parent of a 19-year-old I’ll say you probably aren’t meeting the “normal” old-fashioned ones. My son played lots of sports, is a gym-rat, and has many friends with the same interests. I know lots of his friends – none of them are “woke” and few of them have any desire to work in a corporate office.

Whitney
Member
Reply to  Drake
4 years ago

I meet those kids also and it is always a pleasure to talk to them but that used to be the norm and now you never know if you’re going to encounter one

SebastianX1/9
Reply to  Drake
4 years ago

I do not dispute your son’s virtue; what I dispute is that he and his friends are the norm. I live in NYC right now in a Millennial neighborhood. They are basically autistic. In fact, you will notice how being an “aspy” and a nerd are now labels they want! The trend toward autism in particular is horrifying.

M. B. Lamar
M. B. Lamar
Reply to  SebastianX1/9
4 years ago

Sure they do. Can you imagine being a young white man in the dystopia with no claim to membership in a protected class? If you don’t want to be gay, you have no choice but autism.

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  Drake
4 years ago

Drake,

Similar experience. Sports seems to help roind out the young men. They are pushed, cajoled and encouraged by older men in organized sports. This gives them an interface with men. In addition, through sports they are actually living in their bodies, not just using them as a means of locomotion for their brains and sensory organs.

Drake
Drake
Reply to  Penitent Man
4 years ago

I even used to take him to the gun club’s Friday night youth shooting classes. While the coaches were working on their marksmanship, I could shoot the breeze with the other senior shitlords.

Lineman
Lineman
Reply to  Drake
4 years ago

Did you talk to him yet about being a Lineman as a career choice Drake…

Drake
Drake
Reply to  Lineman
4 years ago

Heh – one of his high school friends is an apprentice lineman right now. Already making nice money. He has certainly considered it.

Lineman
Lineman
Reply to  Drake
4 years ago

Well if he has any questions about it let me know…

Vizzini
Member
4 years ago

Rush’s 2112 came out back in 1976, before people had computers in their homes or there was such a thing as the big tech companies or social media: We’ve taken care of everything The words you read, the songs you sing The pictures that give pleasure to your eye It’s one for all, none for one We work together common sons Never need to wonder how or why We are the priests of the temples of Syrinx Our great computers fill the hallowed halls We are the priests of the temples of Syrinx All the gifts of life are held… Read more »

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  Vizzini
4 years ago

I wore the vinyl out on that album. Poor Getty Lee, can you imagine how hard it must’ve been for him to wrap Peart’s lyrics into the music? Great stuff.

Wolf Barney
Wolf Barney
Reply to  Vizzini
4 years ago

It’s no wonder so many rock critics (mostly leftists) hated Rush. Another example of the disconnect between the “sophisticated” elites and us regular folks. Rush were wildly popular and filled arenas with their rabid fans.

BadThinker
BadThinker
Reply to  Wolf Barney
4 years ago

RIP NP.

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
4 years ago

Technology undermines humanity. It makes people soft and obsolete. That’s why people are increasingly isolated, lazy, pathetic, and insufferable to deal with. It’s also why the technocrats despise us. We need less technology for humanity’s sake. Discipline won’t turn the tide, because people no longer have the discipline, if they ever did. Only a change in circumstances will.

What we have is essentially a bunch of drug pushers (technocrats) who’ve gotten us hooked on their drug. Addicts usually have to hit bottom before they change— or they die.

Epaminondas
Member
Reply to  Paintersforms
4 years ago

After I read Z’s article, I was somewhat depressed. Then I read your comment…

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Epaminondas
4 years ago

We make a change or we get put out of our misery. Either way things get better. Everybody wins!

greyenlightenment
Reply to  Paintersforms
4 years ago

the problem is not technology but lack of direction, purpose, and focus at the individual level. Technologies are just tools.

Rogeru
Rogeru
Reply to  greyenlightenment
4 years ago

For most people, technology is entertainment and they’re entertained non stop.

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Rogeru
4 years ago

Yes and for many people it’s no different than hitting the bottle or the bong. Starts out as a diversion, then a coping mechanism, then a way of life.

Tacitus
Tacitus
Reply to  Paintersforms
4 years ago

The ancient Mystery schools kept their technology and knowledge secret from the profane (pro fane – outside the temple) masses, because it was understood that they did not possess the requisite wisdom to use it responsibly. It is the same reason we don’t give 2 year olds loaded guns, or 13 year olds credit cards with no spending limit. The cosmic punishment (in the sense of Dante) for our abusing technology to evade personal responsibility and growth will be a stark degeneration until it is no longer possible to even maintain it, let alone create. The lesson that *should* be… Read more »

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  Tacitus
4 years ago

Well said.

miforest
miforest
Reply to  Tacitus
4 years ago

the first world creates and makes , the second world maintains , the third world can do neither and that is why it is the third world.

Whitney
Member
4 years ago

I’ve noticed that many of my clients teenage children have zero interest in driving. Can you imagine? Even now driving is the greatest freedom to me. Also, one of the genius writers at the New York Times wrote an article saying Jane Austen wrote Dracula. It’s not just that that was hilariously wrong, its that they couldn’t even bother to check their facts. That’s where we are, ‘I think it’s so it must be true.’ Here’s another. The new Doctor Who is going to be a black woman, yay diversity, in the article and I’m paraphrasing someone said “well the… Read more »

Dave
Dave
Reply to  Whitney
4 years ago

Or P. It’s a running joke among cops that every time they raid the home of a pedophile, it’s full of Star Trek merchandise.

Pete
Pete
Reply to  Whitney
4 years ago

“Also, one of the genius writers at the New York Times wrote an article saying Jane Austen wrote Dracula.”

Hell you think that’s bad? Look up the articles where they try to “prove” that Albert Einstein stole his physics theories and work from his wife.

Mike Ricci
Mike Ricci
Reply to  Whitney
4 years ago

Re: driving — That’s been the case for about 20 years now. Driving doesn’t have the same appeal for young people that it did for Boomers and early GenX. It’s more expensive now, and with less stable employment available and just the fact that young people have less “adult responsibilities” overall, it’s simply not as important.

Not to mention online activities have mostly replaced cruising with your friends.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Whitney
4 years ago

‘Clown world’ is really apt. It is hard to take a clown world seriously.

MemeWarVet
MemeWarVet
4 years ago

Purely anecdotal here, but:

When I was a teen/early 20’s (the era of Bush the Younger), all the girls I interacted with had boyfriends. Sometimes they changed them as often as they did socks, but BF’s were something they always had.

When I talk to women of that age group now, they’re all single. It’s not that they aren’t having sex, but none of them are in relationships. This absolutely blew my mind when I first became aware of it, but it fits with what we see in the larger society.

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  MemeWarVet
4 years ago

Nasssty women.

UFO
UFO
Reply to  MemeWarVet
4 years ago

Yeah, fits into the statistics. Bottom 30% of men get nothing. Mid 30-40% get the scraps. Top 30-40% get everything.

I’ve seen a fair number of decent looking men, dating very ugly girls, too. I guess they figure it’s better than nothing. Also, older childless women never self reflect on their life and promote being a whore to younger women. So it seems that SSRIs and boxed wine is enough to prevent them from breaking the cycle.

Screwtape
Screwtape
Reply to  MemeWarVet
4 years ago

Spiritual but not religious.

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  MemeWarVet
4 years ago

Its understandable as there isn’t much to gain in a relationship for men or women in this era.

Men a loyal, kind feminine wife who will stay with them but many women have no interest in that till the thirties when they suddenly start to realize that they actually wanted a family and a husband

Problem is men don’t want shopworn goods and thus we have our problems.

No easy way to solve that in modernity alas.

Vizzini
Member
4 years ago

Also a little over a century ago, about 1900, most farms were much smaller, family-owned and the vast majority of the population worked in agriculture, so there was an extremely large population that effectively worked for no other man, but was held to account simply by the realities of the land and nature.

The industrial factory and dock life described was not the reality for most of the population. Of course, many people were farm workers on other peoples’ farms, which amounts to the same thing.

Vizzini
Member
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

I underestimated how fast things had been changing. It was 1880 since over half the population had been agricultural workers, but even in 1900 60% of the population was rural and operated around the needs and rhythms of agricultural life.

“In 1900, just under 40 percent of the total US population lived on farms, and 60 percent lived in rural areas. Today, the respective figures are only about 1 percent and 20 percent. ”

http://jaysonlusk.com/blog/2016/6/26/the-evolution-of-american-agriculture

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Vizzini
4 years ago

That’s an interesting thing about rural areas: The acknowledgement of seasons. In my area, spring meant planting, summer was working in the fields, fall was harvest, winter was rest and fixing up the equipment. The pace of life ebbed and flowed with the seasons.

Interestingly, the same holds true for college towns. And if you happen to grow up in a rural college town, each season has a very distinct feel.

Vizzini
Member
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

I agree with your overall point. I just meant to add that there was also a strong strand of self-determination that has also been lost.

Dutch
Dutch
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

When the hired help could be done more cheaply with “off the books” imported labor, that took a lot of blue collar and farming self-sufficiency off the table, right there.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  thezman
4 years ago

Industrialization AND immigration. Flooding the labor market with cheap workers is always great for the capitalist. Well, at least until things turn into Venezuela.

Felix Krull
Member
4 years ago

Another great column – you’re on a roll. That is a big difference compared to today. While most people have a boss in their work place, the boss has no real authority. He is just a conduit for company policy. I don’t think I ever had a boss who personally thought all the team-building nonsense, making spaghetti towers, playing blindfold tag or building free-form Lego sculptures to symbolize the values BigCorpInc, made a lick of sense. Most of them just shrugged and told people to get it over with, only a few – the real assholes – actually seemed to… Read more »

Dutch
Dutch
Reply to  Felix Krull
4 years ago

Work today is like my college was, back around 1980. In college, I learned to regurgitate the professor’s thinking back to him, and then get on with things. In work today, we call the targets and goals “widgets”. Hit all the corporate widgets, and the rest of it is irrelevant to the powers-that-be. The widgets are designed to be doable for motivated people of about 85 IQ, for some strange reason…😉

Exile
Exile
Member
Reply to  Felix Krull
4 years ago

Felix I think there’s a definite element of submission-signalling and humiliation involved. Something like 1/4 of the leadership class scores high on the Dark Triad.

Lotta guys out there treating the job as a daily power and status struggle. And all of the women. Every single one.

Dutch
Dutch
Reply to  Exile
4 years ago

Cats have to chase the mice. If there are no mice to chase, they’ll chase ping pong balls or a kid’s small toy. People need to play their “catch the mouse” game, too, and the power and status struggle becomes the expression of it. I am amazed how coddled Utopians simply eat up the superhero movies and the SF/fantasy themed medieval-tinged battles and fights genre. Note that, these days, most of them involve the women and POCs invoking mysterious, unexpected magic to win the battles. I try not to laugh out loud at it, when I am in the same… Read more »

TheLastStand
Reply to  Dutch
4 years ago

It is gonna be fun when lefties raised on Game of Thrones, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel decide to try their luck against men raised on the Iliad, Zulu, and High Noon.

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  TheLastStand
4 years ago

Its gonna be more fun when lefties raised on Game of Thrones, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel decide to try their luck against men raised wherein Sicarrios, The Wire, and Narcos is their real everyday life.

Felix Krull
Member
Reply to  Exile
4 years ago

And all of the women. Every single one.

I considered adding something to that effect; during these behavioral modification experiments, there’d always be some Tracy Flick-types who absolutely reveled in every moment of it.

I’ve mostly worked in male companies, back before corporate thought-policing really took off. The Traceys could make us bake the cake, but they couldn’t stop us from mocking them.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Exile
4 years ago

What the women are doing is sh*ttesting. They are supposed to do that. What they are are NOT supposed to do, is compete with men. B/c women will run off and complain to ‘the authority’ which men, rightly, consider unmanly. So it can NEVER be a fair competition.

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
4 years ago

Interestingly, my kids and their friends seem to sense that something is off about their world. I’ve mentioned to them that I’m glad I grew up before the internet and, especially, smart phones. I said that kids in my time had a freedom that they’ll never know. We just got on our bikes and rode around. We could get lost and find our back on our own – something not possible now. We talked to each other not knowing or caring what the world thought about what we were saying.

To my shock, they agreed.

Calsdad
Calsdad
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
4 years ago

One of the things I tell my wife that I like about the town we live in – is that on occasion I see younger boys riding their bicycles around town – sometimes alone, sometimes in twos or threes.

And they’re not wearing helmets.

Makes me think not everybody is keeping their young male children in a padded cell and/or keeping the contained in the basement playing video games

Known Fact
Known Fact
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
4 years ago

I know it’s a boomerish thing to say, but I agree — glad I was young in the 60s, 70s and 80s. The internet is great for work, reading, research and entertainment but maybe not so much for personal growth and human interaction. Young people now often seem timid, brittle, disengaged. (And today’s wokey workplace is not going to help them out of their shell). When I went to college — at Mizzou, by the way! — kids wanted to have fun together, and getting along with a bunch of different people was a lesson as important as the classwork.… Read more »

Dr_Mantis_Toboggan_MD
Member
4 years ago

What did you dream? It’s alright, we told you what to dream I hate the dehumanizing aspects of social media and our (dis)connectivity. I have a group of male friends at work and many of them, unlike me, are single. Like many engineers, they are hopeless around women. They’re the kind of smart people who need to have kids, yet they were never taught how to interact with anyone, especially the opposite sex. I’m always counseling them to put down their phones and actually have a real conversation with a woman. Sometimes my cajoling works, other times it doesn’t. I… Read more »

Felix Krull
Member
Reply to  Dr_Mantis_Toboggan_MD
4 years ago

I have a friend who was still a virgin at thirty. By some mysterious means, he had secured a date with a rather cute colleague, and being absolutely hopeless with women, he came to Uncle Felix for advice. I told him one thing: “Don’t make a pass on her, and call it a night before she does – be the one to decide when the date is over.” He was highly skeptical – Danish dating culture is, well, not really a culture as such. Sex on the first date is the default expectation, so giving up even before the game… Read more »

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
Reply to  Felix Krull
4 years ago

You were envious, not jealous. 😉

Felix Krull
Member
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
4 years ago

It may seem like a trivial thing, but I’m sure that one would buy me a lot of credit, if I should ever end up before Saint Peter. Not only did I help him hook up good, but being a virgin was eating him up – one of the reasons he was bad with women. I truly believe I changed his life.

Makes me happy every time I think of it.

David_Wright
Member
Reply to  Felix Krull
4 years ago

It’s quite nice to have that much impact, even if it just one person.

DLS
DLS
Reply to  David_Wright
4 years ago

If I may flip a phrase: To help one person is a great blessing, to help a million is a statistic.

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  Felix Krull
4 years ago

You seem to have done both of them a solid. Well done, Sir.

Carrie
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
4 years ago

Citizen –
I really like that you clarify the difference between those two words.

SO many times today, I hear the word “jealous” used, when really, the person is describing envy.
(Neither are good, but envy is lower down on the scale of anger.)

TheLastStand
Reply to  Felix Krull
4 years ago

Dammit, wish I had advice like that. My father was absolutely useless for advice regarding women, except as an example of what not to do.

The Right Doctor
The Right Doctor
Reply to  TheLastStand
4 years ago

My mother gave me great advice: never date a woman who wears her hair so that only one ear shows.

I think, mutatis mutandis, today that would be blue hair.

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  Dr_Mantis_Toboggan_MD
4 years ago

I know a few men that, through divorce, are back dating in their 30s and 40s. When asked about that pursuit, they tell harrowing stories about what women are available at that age. These are men actually looking for committed relationships with a future. The have good incomes and aren’t bad looking fellows. One guy described online dating as arranging serial viewings of trainwrecks. My takeaway was that sex wasn’t a problem, that is often offered up by the second date… but the hubris, mental instability and emotional baggage of the women is staggering. Serial trainwreck guy said that while… Read more »

Dave
Dave
Reply to  Penitent Man
4 years ago

Anthony Stralow is my hero. He had three kids for about $90,000, with zero risk of losing them in a divorce.

Men need to just stay away from women until women start bringing something of value to the table.

Calsdad
Calsdad
Reply to  Dave
4 years ago

Anthony Stralow is a gay man. So not really sure why heterosexual men should be looking up to him.

But – I get your point. Because the method he used is applicable to straight men as well.

Pretty sure it’s going to cost you a lot more than US $90,000 though to have three kids. Try more like $90k EACH.

Dave
Dave
Reply to  Calsdad
4 years ago

So is Ricky Martin (sexiest man alive in 1998, had twin boys by surrogacy in 2008). Surrogacy services are advertised “for the gay community”, but you’re free to use them without performing any homosexual acts. People will just assume you’re gay and enthusiastically support your reproductive choices.

If cost is a problem, you need to shop around outside the first world, like Stralow did. Even at $90,000 per child, it’s a lot cheaper than a divorce, and you get to keep the child.

Calsdad
Calsdad
Reply to  Penitent Man
4 years ago

I can back that up with what I’ve seen of women I know who have gotten divorced in their 40’s and 50s. I have the perspective of hearing the backstory from all the women that my wife knows who are in that situation. Two in particular that I know personally were quite attractive when they were younger – but the problem is that they’re now in their late 40s or 50s – and still seem to think that they’re 25 years old. They can’t fathom why they can’t ride out the rest of their lives purely on their looks. One… Read more »

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  Calsdad
4 years ago

He isn’t the only one I’ve talked to about this. I am in a high divorce-rate job field. Only one of these men I know seems to enjoy the dating-at-40+ thing… and that guy is a gaggle of baggage himself. My buddy is getting pretty good at sorting out the crazy and entitled gals… pulling the rip cord when the heebeejeebee vibe starts tingling. I wish he had your insight. He’s Argentinian from Irish stock and American women were already a bit mysterious to him. His ex was also from there. He asked me the other day, “What the f***… Read more »

Calsdad
Calsdad
Reply to  Penitent Man
4 years ago

I wish Heartiste’s site was still online – because it’s the best black pill I’ve ever seen to get men to come to some understanding of what confronts them when dealing with females.

Probably why it got shut down by the globohomo TPTB.

JClimacus
JClimacus
Reply to  Calsdad
4 years ago

A man in his 50’s doesn’t have to settle for a woman in her late 40’s or 50’s. I’m 57, been married since I was 23, and occasionally get hit on by women in their late 30’s/early 40’s. One is the recently divorced mom of one of my son’s friends. My wife thinks it’s hilarious.

Screwtape
Screwtape
Reply to  JClimacus
4 years ago

True JC. The options are there. Being hit on is an iceberg sighting. Just the tip. Or maybe it was just a whale. Many fish in the sea but the sun can play tricks. Mermaids and sirens and all that. Most men never even learned to swim. Life is full of options but options are just another way of saying trade-offs since they don’t really exist until exercised. A man’s options may increase with age – to a point, but that doesn’t mean most of those options are still in the money. So it is still about intrinsic value. But… Read more »

The Right Doctor
The Right Doctor
Reply to  Calsdad
4 years ago

No matter how good looking a woman is, somewhere there’s a guy who’s tired of (doing) her.

Vizzini
Member
Reply to  Penitent Man
4 years ago

There are upsides to being a volcel, at least later in life.

Screwtape
Screwtape
Reply to  Penitent Man
4 years ago

Can confirm Penitent.

Our dystopian future arrived many years ago in the sexual market.

joey junger
joey junger
4 years ago

Being screamed at by people you don’t know is an important part of your formation as an adult, and definitely beats being screamed at by someone you do know (better my drill sergeant who only knew my last name, versus my old man when he was pissed). It teaches you two essential things. No matter what is going on outside of you, you have control over how you react (short of being literally tortured, perhaps, but even then there are some men it just makes stronger). 2nd, it teaches you to develop a strong self, a core that no outer… Read more »

Felix Krull
Member
Reply to  joey junger
4 years ago

It teaches you two essential things. No matter what is going on outside of you, you have control over how you react

Just so. I once read an interview with some old, neocon war pig, who explained that if people could manipulate your emotional reactions with words, they had power over you – you had lost your personal agency and become a tool for others.

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Felix Krull
4 years ago

Stoicism is the tool men need. Best of all everything you need is public domain and easily had from bookstores or the Internet.

Make every White man into a stoic and you’d have a hell of a society. You might even get a Marcus Aurelius out it.

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  joey junger
4 years ago

Joey,

Spot on. Coaches would yell but some lines were never crossed. My drill sergeants opened my eyes to a world where I was not the center of the universe, I was the sun and the moon only in my Mum’s eyes, and if they wanted they could kill me and hide the body for being such an immense f**kup (I believed this last one because I was a teenager). I learned these lessons but more importantly I learned to absorb them stoically.

Sandmich
Sandmich
4 years ago

This column reminded me of something:
It is not possible to make a LASTING compromise between technology and freedom, because technology is by far the more powerful social force and continually encroaches on freedom through REPEATED compromises. ~ Theodore Kaczynski

Depressing that a violent kook living in a shed is more level headed than 90% of our leadership.

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Sandmich
4 years ago

The dirty secret is that Kaczynski wasn’t a kook. He was brilliant and had the government not fracked with his brain, would not have ended up in a shed. More importantly while his methods were questionable and not recommended, he was certainly correct in his ideas. Ultimately tech will kill us off, development leads to the mouse utopia, we stop breeding and die , for the US the survivors (Amish, ultra orthodox, some Catholics, some LDS, some Evangelicals and others will carry on., Its self correcting in a shockingly short time frame. I admit I kind of hope that life… Read more »

Scewtape
Scewtape
Reply to  abprosper
4 years ago

“Industrial Society and its Future” is no joke. He was onto something.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  abprosper
4 years ago

He was an archtypical genius, brilliant, disagreeable and staggeringly high IQ.

In a WAY it is another failure of modernity that he is rotting in a concrete box in a supermax. He should be punished for sure. But he is actually so brilliant that he should maybe be jailed in a cell at NASA where he could work on something useful. That is, if NASA were still interested in groundbreaking science and not in ‘making Muslims feel better about their accomplishments’… ‘Clown world’?? Indeed….

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Moran ya Simba
4 years ago

Or maybe he would refuse to work on technology. So maybe he should be imprisoned in a think tank working on the dangers of AI or something. In any case, an evil but absolutely stellar mind is being sent to rot away, at significant expense. B/c ‘he just just a terrorist and all terrorists are the same and must be treated the same…’

David_Wright
Member
4 years ago

I kept reading waiting for an Eloi reference. Being self employed most of my working life I miss a lot of what you say here. I did work a union job early on and I had to deal with sometimes surly foremen. I know someone who just got hired as a supervisor over stock pickers at a state liquor warehouse. Well it’s also union so no type of control or admonishment can be given. Just a nanny, who by the way has to clean up any breakage or mishaps by the retards. Pay is good, so there is that. Notice… Read more »

LineInTheSand
LineInTheSand
Reply to  David_Wright
4 years ago

Lawrence Auster employed the Elio analogy quite effectively. http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/001148.html

He was incredibly irascible, but was most responsible for me radicalizing 10 years ago. He was the bridge between Derbyshire and Taylor.

Wolf Barney
Wolf Barney
Reply to  LineInTheSand
4 years ago

I’m surprised Auster isn’t talked about more here. I used to read his blog everyday and he was a big influence on me. I’m currently reading the book that just came out containing his collected writings, “Our Borders, Ourselves: America in the Age of Multiculturalism.” He passed away in 2013, and is one of those guys like Sam Francis, where you’d love to hear his take on things today.

Gravity Denier
Gravity Denier
Reply to  Wolf Barney
4 years ago

I was an Auster reader and often commented on his postings. We sometimes disagreed, but I credit him with my evolution from a very naive civnat and (I admit with shame) neocon symp to something like a d-rightist. His writing was elegant and, insofar as you accepted his premises, soundly logical. The poor man saw just about his every idea rejected in the larger political realm. He had followers but otherwise zero influence. Yet he never gave up, never diluted his messages in attempting to find safety and win favor. Whatever else can be said about Auster, there is no… Read more »

CAPT S
CAPT S
4 years ago

Excellent essay. A slightly different slant on this is the consequent challenges for fathers in raising boys to men. Back in the day a father had a community of men – bosses, neighbors & coaches – who would reinforce and intensify the father’s lessons in manhood. Maybe the boy would have a demanding boss that oversaw shelf-stocking, tobacco picking, or hay stacking, and in addition he’d have a sports coach that would give him a good reaming-out for not being a team-player. A dad could have high standards, and know that when he sent his boy out for work (or… Read more »

Member
4 years ago

A just machine to make big decisions,
Programmed by fellows with compassion and vision,
We’ll be clean when their work is done,
We’ll be eternally free yes and eternally young.

LineInTheSand
LineInTheSand
Reply to  Libertymike
4 years ago

IGY, Donald is great

Member
Reply to  LineInTheSand
4 years ago

Yes, he is.

Do you think the song portends a bleak dystopian future? Or is it more of a mixed bag?

LineInTheSand
LineInTheSand
Reply to  Libertymike
4 years ago

I can’t recall a single Fagen/Dan lyric that expresses undiluted happiness or optimism.

Stranger in a strange land
Stranger in a strange land
Reply to  LineInTheSand
4 years ago

Show Business kids sure ain’t one

Linda Fox
Member
4 years ago

I’d LIKE to be able to say you’re wrong, but I can’t. People who are self-directed, and can interact with others on a Normal level, are increasingly few.
Might a large part of this be related to the high numbers of children raised by women, who tend to be enforcers of group-think?

Dutch
Dutch
Reply to  Linda Fox
4 years ago

There is the normal give-and-take, which we do well here, as a group, and there is also the room for respectful disagreement. Our culture is being conditioned for people to go all apeshit if someone disagrees with them on any little thing. On top of that is the “did you vote for Trump” shit-test lead to any new social relationship, guaranteed to start the immediate “Rhee-Rhee-Rhee” if the answer comes back affirmative. Helluva culture we have going on here.

ReturnOfBestGuest
ReturnOfBestGuest
Reply to  Linda Fox
4 years ago

Until the advent of same-sex marriage most kids were raised by women. Probably most kids are still raised by women.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  ReturnOfBestGuest
4 years ago

Return, Mum when you’re young, learning the rules inside the house, Da when you’re older, for outside the house.

Da is more of a leavening agent. But that was back then.

I had no Da, and feel the lack of male skills.
Plus, I was clueless with women, even though I worked almost entirely around women

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  Alzaebo
4 years ago

Alzaebo,

Sorry to hear that. Truly. Stepdad was a hard, hard man with neery a nice bone in his body. But I learned a ton from him. Hard work, toughness and how to behave like a man. Moms are crucial too, but I’ve known a couple of men that raised a daughter or daughters alone and the girls turned out well. Maybe would have even been greater if there’d been a mom around. There is no substitute for a strong male figure in the household.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Penitent Man
4 years ago

Why, thanks, Penitant.
I would’ve been somebody else, a scrapper like Da- but then, could that someone else have learned the One Thing I did?

For all my failures, yet I’m ever grateful that I got my shot. Still so much left to do with it.

(I hesitate to add, but the one and only thing that matters is figuring out the mechanisms of what happens after death, which has led to what comes before and after birth. The whole “why are we here, then?”, and I have great confidence in my model’s accuracy.
None have gotten so far.)

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  Alzaebo
4 years ago

Alzaebo, I think your knowledge that you lacked a strong male figure is a tool unto itself. I’m aware that I skew toward dyslexia with numbers so I compensate in advance. I have tools for my lackng. I’m glad you are seeking. I hope you find whatever it is you looking for. I came into Christ’s embrace late. It wasn’t a rock bottom conversion. It was methodical, probing, reasoned approach. I started lightly, with Yancy and a little speech by Bishop Barron about “begetting.” I asked for a sign and was given a tiny one, befitting a small soul, but… Read more »

Mike_C
Mike_C
Reply to  ReturnOfBestGuest
4 years ago

This is an interesting discussion between Jordan Peterson and Warren Farrell, which despite the title (about video games) is really about the important (indeed, critical) roles fathers play in the proper upbringing of a child.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBBPyCSJDEo

Wkathman
Wkathman
4 years ago

This essay is so brilliant that I have nothing to add. Well, maybe one thing: increased diversity has also played a major role in the de-personalization of modern society. Multiculturalism motivates folks to isolate rather than connect with one another. But Zman certainly already knows that.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Wkathman
4 years ago

Tech, diversity, and broken families / neighborhoods. Seems a perfect storm.

Yves Vannes
Yves Vannes
Member
4 years ago

Passivity in especially young white men is a problem. Dependency upon tech, especially automated step-by-step applications, are also making the end-users dumber and dumber. No one has to think a step or a few steps ahead, no one has to work out detail plans before they begin some project, no one has to sweat out a solution to an unforeseen problem because the machine will spoon feed one to you, and on and on… At some point automation won’t be enough to keep things going. Too many people will be too passive and too dumb to perform even basic upkeep… Read more »

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  Yves Vannes
4 years ago

I have to correct Sainted Mum all the time when she extoles the amazing skills of the grandkids’ with her smart phone. “These kids today are so great with technology!”

“No Mum, they are great at navigating the user interface with your apps. They are great little consumers of the product, they have no idea how it actually works.”

Screwtape
Screwtape
Reply to  Yves Vannes
4 years ago

As a “consultant” I run into this a lot. I often have to spend more hours learning and managing a project management software interface than I do actually performing work. Because without the interface the work does not exist. The amount of time spent cataloguing and massaging these proprietary systems is some multiple of the time spent actually directing intellect, ingenuity, creativity, and strategy into the supposed problem at hand. Hence the money to be made in SaaS i reckon. The old cliche “think outside the box” is just a cruel joke for is genx’ers now. For most, work does… Read more »

ReturnOfBestGuest
ReturnOfBestGuest
Reply to  Screwtape
4 years ago

Screwtape, I get having some “Shop Standards & Procedures.” I don’t get the whole Project Management Industry (Rational Rose/Agile/PMI/Six Sigma). As a consultant, like you, I’ve worked with all these certification dweebs. I’ve yet to meet one–even with the same certs–that manage a project in the same way.

BadThinker
BadThinker
Reply to  ReturnOfBestGuest
4 years ago

There is a great essay out there somewhere, “The Life Cycle of a Silver Bullet.”

found it – http://freyr.websages.com/Life_Cycle_of_a_Silver_Bullet.pdf

sirlancelot
sirlancelot
4 years ago

Was driving with a can of Redbull between my legs the other day ( only thing that gets me through the overtime shifts ) and harkened me back to a days as young man . Driving a convertible with a big V8 , cruising down the highway, heading for the beach. Cold can of beer between my legs , one hand on the steering wheel and the other hand between a young girl’s thighs 🙂 Makes me sad to think there’s teenagers playing video games in their mother’s basement instead out drinking beer and chasing pussy. It’s criminal what we’ve… Read more »

Member
4 years ago

It isn’t just robots and automation, tons of middle managers now are women and working for a woman is way different from working for a guy.

Sandmich
Sandmich
Reply to  Arthur Sido
4 years ago

I work for a woman who is less emotionally driven than the last guy boss I had, but the phrase “exceptions and rules” comes to mind, and I’m grateful to be living in the “exception”.

S. Bishop
S. Bishop
Member
4 years ago

Because of my age I’ll be missing out on this ‘Utopia.’

If I have this right, Big Tech will be working on robots to manage us rubes in the ‘workplace’ and then provide us ‘fetching’ robotic sexual partners to satisfy us at home after a hard days work. The next big technological leap will be these same female robots will be programmed to withhold sex until we fall in line with the correct thinking and behavior mandated by our rulers.

Sort of like life…

Screwtape
Screwtape
Reply to  S. Bishop
4 years ago

I can’t give credit where due, but twenty some years ago I came across a joke about our future. It was relevant then. More so now. Something like…

In the future every business will need only three things: a computer, a man, and a dog.

The computer exists to run the business. It will have AI, be able to learn, make decisions, and run every aspect of the business autonomously.

The man’s job is to feed the dog.

The dog’s job is to keep the man from touching the computer.

The end.

Kirk Forlatt
Reply to  S. Bishop
4 years ago

Anyone ever see the 1971 George Lucas movie THX 1138? It’s the BAD kind of prescient.

Exile
Exile
Member
4 years ago

I started noticing the people skills deficit years back when I saw the difference between old school managers with natural people skills and the new breed whose talents were entirely synthetic and book-taught. Not even close. I’ve never been a fan of the managerial class but there are guys who do add value to a project (not that many). Like most things, it’s subject to scale and the further from the “squad level” you scale, the more metrics and management theory arglebargle matter, until you very rapidly reach diminishing returns. The most obvious factors in the great achievements of modern… Read more »

Citizen of a Silly Country
Citizen of a Silly Country
4 years ago

The future belongs to those who show up. If whites and Asians fall to procreate due to their technology, their lands will be will be taken over by those who either shun that technology or cannot maintain it and thus continue to have children.

Nature always finds a balance. I feel as though we’re at the very end of a period of history where things are got out of balance, and we’re about to see thing whip back the other way. Just a hunch.

Dave
Dave
Reply to  Citizen of a Silly Country
4 years ago

The future is D and C climate zones inhabited by Amish farmers, B zones by Muslim goat-herders, and A zones by naked savages armed with pointy sticks.

Mark Stoval
Mark Stoval
4 years ago

As a child of the 60’s, not being interested in sex is hard for me to grasp!

David_Wright
Member
Reply to  Mark Stoval
4 years ago

Yeah because we came out raging sex-aholics and drug users, right?

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  David_Wright
4 years ago

They took everything good and flamed it out on the boomers. Marriage, family, sex, real estate, the real economy, art, music, etc. Turned up to 11 and all toast now. Not even boomers’ fault, except not knowing better. They were told it all belonged to them, do with it what you will. Free the individual from reality and so on.

bilejones
Member
Reply to  Paintersforms
4 years ago

Ah, It’s always someone else’s fault, isn’t it?

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  bilejones
4 years ago

Is it ever yours?

For the millionth time EXCEPTIONS.

bilejones
Member
Reply to  Paintersforms
4 years ago

90% of the fuckups in my life are of my making. It’s the price you pay for agency.
The others are just freebies.

Paintersforms
Paintersforms
Reply to  bilejones
4 years ago

You’re talking to a millennial about unfair criticism. It’s something we know quite a lot about.

Millenials have so much agency it’s sick. Many of us actually think our thoughts and actions affect the whole world. It makes a person neurotic and stunts emotional development.

I’ve let go of that. Hence I make or read general statements without intending or taking them personally. If I offend that’s why. Seems healthier overall to call what I see.

c matt
c matt
Reply to  Mark Stoval
4 years ago

The awkwardness is a factor in the lowered sexual interest, but so is the “poundmetoo” phenomena, and I am willing to bet, the increase of soy in the diets.

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  c matt
4 years ago

Lower T certainly is an issue but you’d assume that places like Europe where people are slender , walk a lot and soy isn’t a huge thing would have higher fertility rates . Its basically the same everywhere in the developed and mostly developed world including Asia where soy is only eaten in its healthy form (tofu and its ilk) and has been for centuries without ill effect. AIUI the pill is a huge problem. For clarity I’m pro birth control and tepidly pro abortion but the pill screws up hormonal biology and the scent cues women use to mate.… Read more »

Yves Vannes
Yves Vannes
Member
Reply to  abprosper
4 years ago

And shut down the damned porn industry.

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Yves Vannes
4 years ago

This is the conservative “porn is icky” instinct rearing its head not a thought out policy. Its irrelevant as far as society goes since porn has little to do with fertility rates. It may reduce rape as well Its net “bad” effect is bad ideas about sex and maybe a few marginal men opting out The impotence risk is questionable. I personally think for some people harder and harder porn leads to escalation to get a dopamine rush but how many people is in question Porn existed in the commonly in the 70’s certainly , in semi mainstream theater films… Read more »

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  abprosper
4 years ago

Yves, Agreed. Shut it down. I dont know if it will help the TFR. Don’t care. It will help delegitimize that vortex of lost souls. It will lessen the coarseness of our society. (((They))) profit but it’s Our marginal kids drawn into the porn racket, not theirs. Our youth shouldn’t be their sex toys. Dont believe me, threaten to shut it down and watch all those fine *fellow white* lawyers from the ACLU come crawling over each other to defend it, when they can’t seem to find the time to defend the “civil liberties” of a single depersoned dissident. Burn… Read more »

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Penitent Man
4 years ago

As I said the Conservative revulsion reflex in play. Truth is unless you shut off the Internet shutting down the porn industry would require a political consensus that doesn’t exist not to mention a totalitarian state being imposed on a lawless well armed population that likes the stuff. Older folks may not see that porn has been ubiquitous and fully mainstream for at least three decades and is used by nearly everyone male and female. Assuming 13 is the age of first interest , no one under I don’t know 35 remembers a world without porn everywhere and by the… Read more »

Yves Vannes
Yves Vannes
Member
Reply to  abprosper
4 years ago

(((They))) made it, (((they peddle it))), (((they))) even give it away for free. And as PM pointed out above, try to limit it and (((their)))Talmudists show up in leagues to defend it.

I don’t need to know anything else.

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Yves Vannes
4 years ago

The Dissident Right is also not a repeat of the NDSAP either,

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  abprosper
4 years ago

So, I think we should invest heavily in rocket technology. Other worlds, not all our eggs in one basket sort of thing… shall we eschew that as well because the NDSAP tinkered with rockets?

No true Scotsman…

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  abprosper
4 years ago

AB Prosper It goes beyond “theocratic leanings.” It is possible to declare something a detriment to society and do away with it (or inhibit it) without being a bible-thumper. I give you seat belt laws, smoking indoors, etc. The word n****r was still bandied around in public when I was a kid. My concern goes beyond Godliness. I worked for a couple of years in television and movies as a support consultant. It is a not-at-all hidden fact that the big money behind porn is the tribe and support services are like a little cottage industry with them. I knew… Read more »

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Penitent Man
4 years ago

No apology needed at least to me. Seat belt and smoking laws are part of the problem and the N word isn’t enforced by the State. As a counter example, its illegal to talk on phones or to use weed while driving, both crimes are ubiquitous around here. As far as those girls, the key failure there wasn’t porn but lack of fathers. Hell I saw a joking sign on a strip club that said “Thank goodness for single moms” the fact that people can have sex for money isn’t the issue. Its lack of intact families. Job one of… Read more »

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  abprosper
4 years ago

The public use of the N word is largely socially unacceptable except when blacks use it. While not illegal it has become almost tantamount to social suicide. Yes, seat belt laws and smoking are sometimes flaunted but the majority of folks adhere to them. The fault of childporn probably lies with adult family constructs as well, but it is curtailed. Nope, you can’t shut the internet down but you can so stigmatize and delegitimize the porn industry that new production will be forced deep underground. Far enough that those vulnerable to it will have a hard time stumbling upon it.… Read more »

Carrie
Reply to  abprosper
4 years ago

I like Captain Capitalism’s idea of males getting snipped. (And it’s reversible, I am told.)
Then the crazy women out there today cannot point to a man and say “you are the babydaddy.”
His idea is for men (in this crazy day & age) to take back some of their control.
And it’s physical, rather than chemical (like The PIll), so theoretically it doesn’t mess with the hormone factor in men. (But I’m not a biologist, so take it all with a grain of salt.)

Just thought his idea was a cool one, for the men to take back control.

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Carrie
4 years ago

Celibacy and MGTOW is free and without side effects.

Mike_C
Mike_C
Reply to  abprosper
4 years ago

There are many undesirable effects of MGTOW. I get the motivation of “keep away from crazy women”. But the problem is not that women are crazy, because they are not. The root problem is that modern society makes (some) women crazy and pressures all women toward acting crazy. MGTOW is a suboptimal and ultimately self-defeating strategy. “Oh look, someone keeps contaminating the wells. Well, I’m going to not drink water.” That’s MGTOW. Not drinking water works, for a while. But the better solution is to drink from the uncontaminated wells, and to hunt down and stop the bastards spreading the… Read more »

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Mike_C
4 years ago

Women are not water and men can live full lives without them or children. if anything they are a burden as Francis Bacon noted He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. MGTOW is not just “drop out” its go own way and that can be anything from video games to starting a business or even If you get lucky and find a decent women , marriage and kids. I get the concern about the social effects but not to put too fine a point… Read more »

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
4 years ago

Not sure if this was already posted and caught in the spam filter so if repeated, sorry about that. People know far less about human nature today than they used to. The reasons are (probably) the religion of equality, to which everything must conform so facts that contradict it must be made unknown, and technology which means that we can, sort of, avoid having to deal with some of human nature’s less pleasant aspects. Take the role between the sexes. So-called pick up arts (PUA) is nothing but young men relearning knowledge about, first, female psychology, that people absolutely knew… Read more »

TomA
TomA
4 years ago

Yes, we are well on the road to morphing into an insect-like drone culture (or sheeple herd if you prefer). The cloud people cannot disarm us without triggering a revolution, so the next best thing is insidious indoctrination (via cell phones/internet addiction) leading to homogenization of mind and body. But to succeed, these tech overlords must remain in the shadows. The good news is that they are relatively few and fragile. Remedy is feasible and necessary to save mankind.

Tarstarkusz
Member
Reply to  TomA
4 years ago

If the gov wants to disarm us, it will almost certainly go over without much of a hitch. After much kvetching, bitching, protesting and letter writing, most will comply and most of the rest will disobey quietly and give up a few token guns while hiding the rest. A tiny fraction will be in open defiance and get arrested at an opportune time, such as going into or leaving work. Maybe double digits will refuse to give up the guns and put on a show before either surrendering or getting shot. Even if they managed to get a Bundy Ranch… Read more »

TomA
TomA
Reply to  Tarstarkusz
4 years ago

Firearms are for hunting and personal protection, and not for violent revolt. Do not fall into that trap. The Cloud People want to foment war and decimation between Patriots and LEOs in order to pave the way for jackboot repression. If you think that most citizens are going to quietly turn in their guns, you need to get off the wacky tabacky. Ain’t gonna happen.

Tarstarkusz
Member
Reply to  TomA
4 years ago

If you take violent revolt completely off the table, there is little point to having the gun, at least politically. The cops will follow orders. They are beating and pepper-spraying old women. Spray and pray is now a police tactic. Police are pulling out their guns and emptying magazines for reasons that would have had them imprisoned in the past. Cops are behaving like an occupying military force. Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_Cb55-4j1c They rip the doors off a guy’s house and put a giant hole in the house looking for a possible “secret room” all for a small bag of… Read more »

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  Tarstarkusz
4 years ago

I would hazard that these examples are exceptions and not the rule. Unacceptable exceptions, but outliers nevertheless. You may be correct, particularly in blue hives, but in rural setting less so. I have no qualms about blue hives disarming themselves.

Tarstarkusz
Member
Reply to  Penitent Man
4 years ago

If these were rare and unacceptable exceptions, they wouldn’t put it on TV and brag about doing it. They would also be sent to prison or at least fired. But what makes these things so offensive is that the cops are almost always cleared no matter what they do. If you really want to see the everyday banality of cops acting a fool, check out Rick Gore’s channel called Good Luck America. 30 years police experience. Channel used to be called “think like a cop” He explains what is going through the mind of a cop when they do X… Read more »

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  Tarstarkusz
4 years ago

Agreed. There are lots of bad cops. There also tens of thousands of cops. I’ll buy into demilitarizing the police, and I’d like to see the end of blanket indemnity. It simply hasn’t been my experience that this is a massive problem in the percentages.

bilejones
Member
Reply to  Tarstarkusz
4 years ago

After some surgery I spent some time binge-watching cop shows. Without exception they were blatant attempts to normalize levels of brutality and totalitarianism that was unthinkable fifty years ago. Some 15-20 years ago I saw some of a series called “24” which went to great lengths to show how morally upright and torn the individuals were who perpetrated torture were and hoe necessary it was “to protect us”. Just how successful this was was confirmed when the Senate confirmed as head of the CIA some bint who loudly advocated torture and admitted taking part in it herself. The country is… Read more »

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Penitent Man
4 years ago

Hive folk don’t have many guns but Hispanics here in Cali certainly do and don’t give a crap about the law . Neither do the Blacks Rebel Right Whites do but they won’t obey gun laws past a point nor will Antifa at least some of them were amusingly marching on the pro gun side You certainly can disarm hive folk but they don’t matter. In the end, the only things preventing a bugaloo are President Trump. the Rights awareness of the cost and a lack of hunger for power. Leave me alone is rarely enough for that sort of… Read more »

bilejones
Member
Reply to  Penitent Man
4 years ago

The historical evidence is that the police will do as their paymasters demand.

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  bilejones
4 years ago

Bile,

You are on to something there. So reframe it. How do Ours become both the police, and more importantly, the paymasters?

That’s where community building comes into play. A single step is the first…

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  bilejones
4 years ago

Absolutely though a lot of rural cops will not comply with gun laws , c.f Virginia Even now there are lots of areas usually controlled by gangs. where its too dangerous for police to operate for the most part. If everything fails Y/T is fundamentally going to have to adapt the same mentality and put aside our craving for large scale order. Its doable, Southey used to be somewhat like this as are and were White areas of Chicago but getting order obsessed Germanics to act like ethnics will be tricky at first. This will also have the unfortunate side… Read more »

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Tarstarkusz
4 years ago

Tars, I fear you are right on the money there.

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Tarstarkusz
4 years ago

I disagree. Thus far registration and bans have had almost no compliance in the US .More importantly the people interested in arms aren’t the autistic tech heads but the more reality based people. This includes plenty of millennial people (now as old as 39 BTW!) and younger. That said long term this society is toast. Tech heads don’t have babies, no people, no society . Bringing in lower IQ types won’t work as they not only can’t sustain the society but often as not decline tot he same fertility level. Hispanic TFR in the US is around 2 or lower… Read more »

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Tarstarkusz
4 years ago

If the gov wants to disarm us, it will almost certainly go over without much of a hitch< There will be a few tussles and deaths and a lot of hysteria. I don’t see the ‘great insurgency’ happening though (I could be wrong about that). But I would expect that a lot of people would start burying and otherwise hiding guns and ammo. I would imagine that in a place like Australia, quite similar to the US in many important ways, but w hyper hysterical gun control, they will keep finding shotguns and rifles wrapped in blankets in old attics… Read more »

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Moran ya Simba
4 years ago

There are rather large differences in the psyche of Americans and Aussies. A few Aussies were annoyed by the gun ban as they don’t precisely see it as a right, Americans are seriously angry at much less. Nothing much will happen with Trump in office though unless there is gun confiscation. However it doesn’t take a large insurgency to make things hell for the establishment and there are not only more possibles but they are better armed and trained and can actually get at the political class, unlike say the IRA who couldn’t easily get at Parliament. However no sane… Read more »

Matrix
4 years ago

Wow! Amazing take! As I hastily tap this out on my schooled issue lap-top, looking over at my schooled issue I-pad, and monitoring my latest text from my brand new I-phone, I wonder why these young wipper-snappers can’t focus. Wait, what was this column about? Oh yeah, the lack of sexual activity and why easy access to porn has helped in teaching proper ZER behavior. Now I think I’ll dial up a little Netflix, play some witches and warcraft, and try on my new air-b and b’s and see how good these babies work. Back to class!

Epaminondas
Member
4 years ago

Well, this gets my day off to a perky start.

Maus
Maus
4 years ago

Related to the tool versus user dichotomy (see my comment just above or below), Zman’s essay also passes over the role of military service and the compulsory draft. Everyone who has served learned quickly when they’d pissed off the drill sargeant; and the pre-Vietnam era was a unique blend of hierarchical organization and social leveling as men from divergent socio-economic classes were thrown together in barracks or battle. I fully recognize that our modern volunteer military is plagued with problems from diversity issues and the integration of women and other politically-correct garbage that has nothing to do with operational effectiveness.… Read more »

Exile
Exile
Member
Reply to  Maus
4 years ago

The martial virtues remain virtues and really can’t be taught in a non-combative/competitive context. I understand the reluctance of many guys to be involved with a military that is actively hostile to our interests, but it’s a hell of a dilemma for us to leave the military wholly to the other guys. Trying to maintain our own organizations that teach martial values is going to be one of the big red flags that will cause problems for our lower-key communities. At the very least I think we need a non-poz alternative to the scouts for Our Guys to teach Our… Read more »

Yves Vannes
Yves Vannes
Member
Reply to  Exile
4 years ago

Some sort of formal training led by men of some substance would be ideal but I wish young boys and young men would simply engage in a bit more roughhousing within their little groups. One of the most valuable lessons I’ve ever learned took 10 or 15 seconds: I was in yhe 7th grade. I’d gotten in the way of an 8th grader who was chasing someone. He tripped over me and the other kid got away. He was angry and punch me hard in the face. I got wobbly for a few seconds but I didn’t go down. Up… Read more »

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  Yves Vannes
4 years ago

Yves,

There is an old saying when trying to get kids to be careful around stoves.

“The word warns but the burned hand teaches.”

My first punch in the face was an eye-opener too. (Well, one eye swole closed but you get me…). Dad had taught me the basics of boxing, but that fist taught me why.

ReturnOfBestGuest
ReturnOfBestGuest
Reply to  Exile
4 years ago

Exile, I don’t where you are, but I’ve never seen the martial arts more popular than they are now. When I was a kid there was Karate and Judo and even they were considered slightly eccentric. (Wrestling and wrestling theater were enormously popular.) Now you can’t swing a cat without encountering some MMA (or just MA) studio.

Penitent Man
Penitent Man
Reply to  Exile
4 years ago

Exile, A lot to unpack there. My own views have shifted over time. I used to think I served the Republic but suspect it was already an empire. To that end, I am gently steering my son away from the Armed Forces. There is a lot to be gained there, but I’d rather not donate him for Zionist/Neocon forever wars. Having said that, I agree we don’t want to entirely surrender that endeavor to team Poz. I tried, unsuccessfully, to talk a dear friend’s son out of joining up. Having failed to dissuade him I offered up the next best… Read more »

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Penitent Man
4 years ago

Those military skills must not be lost, they’ll be absolutely essential in what is to come.

Men have trained in foreign fields and brushfire wars for untold millenia.

I cannot begrudge them, but only envy them. They have that something extra, won at the hardest costs.

As to religion, as an ‘atheist’ I agree, so my People are my religion, with the Face of Deus Vult.

Carrie
Reply to  Penitent Man
4 years ago

There can be no community of ‘our thing’ without Christianity. It is part of what sets us apart.
Period.

If you don’t want to practice it, fine. But don’t try to actively “convert” people away from it.
But the over-arching values must be Christian.
Let everyone have their own churches and practices.
And no (((them))) and no muzloids.

JR Wirth
JR Wirth
4 years ago

I disagree. I have an Alexa in every room and a bluetooth device permanently on my body except when I’m in the shower. My employment demands it. However, I can access this site. Anyone with a brain will eventually come to sites like this. that wasn’t possible 40 years ago with three channels and a hand full of papers telling us how to think and how to live. About five years after the internet came out, around 2000, the carefully choreographed dance of fake news started faltering with third party websites. Drudge was the breakout one, but now we have… Read more »

Maus
Maus
4 years ago

This is an excellent essay on the changing nature of social relations from hierarchical to egalitarian over the course of the 20th century. But it does seem to over emphasize the role of technology. Like any tool, it is suited to some occasions and not to others. We used to say of monomanical people that they acted as if they knew how to use a hammer but saw every situation as a nail. It put the blame squarely on the user and not the tool. After all, this blog from which we derive so much joy and insight wouldn’t be… Read more »

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Maus
4 years ago

Im not sure if it overemphasizes is or is ‘just’ an essay about the role technology plays here. But there are other important aspects for sure.

Drake
Drake
4 years ago

Charles Stross wrote a couple of novels about a future where humanity goes extinct out of indifference. In “Saturn’s Children” the main character is a self-aware sex-android with nobody left to have sex with.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Drake
4 years ago

TJ Bass, in his two great “The Godwhale” books, tells us of the Hive. Forgotten classics from the 70s, absurdly fun, extremely hard SF. The characters casually speak like big-dome scientists, yet are unaware that Hive denizens carry their own clouds of midges, gnats, and fleas. Also, Kage Baker predicts our mindless Woke master class of her glorious Company series, in “The Life of the World to Come”. Probably the liveliest, most appealing SF out there, for both girls and boys. (Doomed orphans throughout time are taken, made into immortal cyborgs, to wait and steal away treasures that would be… Read more »

Vegetius
Vegetius
4 years ago

Six million robot historians will conclude that the Trump impeachment was the Jewiest episode in American history.

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
Reply to  Vegetius
4 years ago

“Impeachment is a project of the numerically-dominant Jewish Dem-voting Left, with Jewish counsels for questioning Jewish witnesses in House committees headed by Jews, covered with breathless enthusiasm by Jewish-owned media outlets”
–Kevin McDonald

Alzaebo
Alzaebo
4 years ago

Odd that the Ice People populations who can build high tech- the whites and Japan- stop breeding at a certain density.

Meanwhile, the marching morons south of the equator, who couldn’t build or keep an alphabet or the wheel, just keep breeding and breeding until they’re eating each other.

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  Alzaebo
4 years ago

That IS interesting. But we also once bred like crazy. And Japan may be the first society to become uber technological. Back in the 1980s, they were at the forefront of computer games, electronics and such. And they totally shut down the boy and girl have fun thing. Maybe there’s a causal link there??

Major Hoople
Major Hoople
Member
4 years ago

So like the Amish “boiling off” the rebels, are we going to evolutionarily adapt to become “software compliant”? Well, maybe not, if nobody is having sex. Wait, didn’t Huxley’s BNW have a way around that?

abprosper
abprosper
Reply to  Major Hoople
4 years ago

Oh our elite will try to do cloning no doubt about it. Society however including their intelligence and birth rates is declining too fast.

That said maybe those Grey Aliens people claim to see are future people. God with machines, very advanced and no longer human (oh and dying off or so its claimed) .

Frankly the future is just going to be a lot less people , lower tech and vastly more religious though the Amish Land Wars of 2250 or so will be unpleasant.

Dennis Roe
Dennis Roe
4 years ago

A bone jarring Depression {coming], will change a whole lot of attitudes. We’re just like the Weimar Germans. Debasement and filth every which way you turn. Jews at the wheel, stuffing their pockets before driving a country off a cliff. Everything you held sacred, mocked and scorned. When your money ain’t worth shit {coming} and you need a wheelbarrow instead of a wallet…..you better look back to your ancestors and what the fuck they went thru to get your ass here.

Rogeru
Rogeru
4 years ago

For some reason, I’ve been watching interviews with ex mobsters on YouTube. One thing that jumps out is the sense of personal agency, they’re responsible for earning money and paying their “mib taxes”. The interviewees are very type A. Another thing that jumps out is the personal loyalty*; a mobster is loyal to the mob through loyalty to his superior. Its a very social enterprise, everybody knows everybody. I wonder if these two aspects, in addition to relatively easy money, aren’t a big attraction? One interviewee was premed when he decided to follow in his father’s footsteps. On the subject… Read more »

miforest
miforest
4 years ago

brilliant observation Z . I can It lines up completely with my experience raising my kids and interacting with all things young people. The ” non-confrontational” person easy to control and manipulate by those in power. If you look at birthrates worldwide, this out of Africa thing for the homonids may turn out to be a temporary thing . I a few thousand yers it may be Wakanda only

Moran ya Simba
Moran ya Simba
Reply to  miforest
4 years ago

It seems there is a second (or third or Xth) ‘out of Africa’ moment happening. Maybe b/c Africa has more land in the tropics where biodensity and diversity is highest and hence where Darwinian competition is the fiercest. And then, every now and then, there is an outburst of conquest from this Darwinian ‘pressure cooker’.

A similar pattern is seen with bugs. Most ‘super bugs’ come from the only two places where ‘mega fauna’ has survived in the modern world, Africa and South Asia. Coincidence? Maybe, but interesting pattern.

Christian Attorney in Ohio
4 years ago

Meet the new boss, (not the) same as the old boss.

CTL
CTL
4 years ago

Issac Asimov dealt with these issues in his science fiction Robot Novels, in a final wrap up novel, his protagonists search the universe to determine the original source of human kind. In the process they tour the remains of the earth’s originally colonized “Spacer” planets that had embraced robots. With the exception of just one, Solaria, all human life had died out. On Solaria humans had genetically changed themselves into isolated sexless hermaphrodites that never physically had contact with each other.

HamburgerToday
HamburgerToday
4 years ago

From the first two paragraphs, I thought this would be one of Z’s better essays and I was right. As a corollary to the idea of humans become mechanized, the notion of AI achieving ‘human-like’ intelligence is going to be the result of humans thinking more and more like machines until we meet AI *coming down* its level, not AI rising up to ours.

ReturnOfBestGuest
ReturnOfBestGuest
4 years ago

You could add the ubiquity of pr0n and introduced environmental endocrine disruptors to the mix.

James J OMeara
Member
4 years ago

“. It may be that our demise will simply be due to technology dehumanizing us to the point where we no longer have enough interest in one another to bother mating. Instead of fire, it will be ice, the icy stare of people looking at one another through the lens of technology.”

I believe this was the idea behind the Butlerian Jihad in Dune and resultant ban on “thinking machines.”

greyenlightenment
4 years ago

It seems like things are getting both better and worse at the same time. Too much time indoors yet technology has improved living standard.s Not shedding tears for decline in team sports though. Learning to code, reading, and other solitary activities are a better use of one’s time anyway. I would rather work independently on things that can make me money than engage in unnecessary socialization.

Mike Ricci
Mike Ricci
Reply to  greyenlightenment
4 years ago

Unnecessary socialization is good for you.