Video summary
The podcast episode critically examines a specific demographic of men who express anger toward modern society, believing they would have fared better in medieval times or under historical figures like Genghis Khan. The host introduces this group as suffering from what he terms "history fantasy," noting their tendency to overestimate the probability of achieving greatness while ignoring the brutal realities faced by ordinary people in those eras. A primary example discussed is Brian Kee, a neo-reactionary figure who advocates for rule by strong men and absolute authority. Despite projecting an image of immense physical strength on social media platforms like Twitter, his real-life appearance contradicts this persona entirely; he is described as scrawny rather than the muscular "barbarian" he claims to be. This discrepancy highlights a broader pattern where individuals romanticize past eras of brutality without realizing they would likely perish within days in such environments due to their own lack of survival skills compared to historical figures like Genghis Khan, who could easily have executed them for trivial reasons. The discussion extends beyond physical strength to address the idealization of agricultural life and food security from previous centuries. The host debunks claims made by far-right commentators that farming in the past was simpler or more abundant than it is today. In reality, historical agriculture required perfect soil conditions, specific pH levels, constant pest control, and favorable weather, leaving populations entirely at nature's mercy where a single flood could destroy an entire harvest overnight. Modern advancements such as pesticides, fertilizers, greenhouses, and infrared lighting have eliminated widespread famine in the West, yet some still cling to nostalgia for a time when crops were plentiful without understanding that nature has never been aligned with human desires. The transcript notes that extreme weather events causing climate-related deaths have decreased by 98 percent over the last century, representing a fifty-fold reduction compared to historical baselines where cold and heat killed far more people than they do now. A significant portion of the conversation focuses on psychological mechanisms driving this nostalgia for the past, specifically linking it to an externalization of locus of control. The host explains that in previous centuries, survival demanded immediate personal responsibility; there was no luxury of blaming systemic issues because one's life depended entirely on individual competence and effort. In contrast, modernity provides extensive support systems—from food production to safety measures—that allow individuals to shift blame for their failures onto external circumstances or the "modern age." This psychological shift means that when people feel unsuccessful in socio-sexual hierarchies or socioeconomic status today, they can attribute these struggles to structural problems rather than personal inadequacy. The host suggests that yearning for a simpler past is often a regression to childhood fantasies where life was uncomplicated and adults did not have to navigate the complex responsibilities of adulthood. The episode concludes by analyzing how this desire to blame external factors serves as an avoidance mechanism, allowing individuals to escape culpability for their current situations. By convincing themselves that earlier times were idyllic or purer, people alleviate the pressure of addressing modern challenges and avoid taking responsibility for their own destinies. The host references research suggesting a trend toward externalizing locus of control over the past forty years, particularly since the 1990s, which correlates with increased resentment toward contemporary society. Ultimately, the argument posits that these "history fantasists" are not seeking genuine historical accuracy but rather an escape from adult complexity and personal accountability. The summary reinforces that while modernity offers tools to solve problems like famine and disease, it also demands a level of self-reliance that previous generations could not afford, making the romanticized view of the past fundamentally disconnected from reality.
Read the full video transcript
this is the alpha history fantasy modern
men who are angry at a world they
believe has rejected them mistakenly
field that they would have done better
in medieval times they are somehow
adamant that the chance of them being
Genghis Khan is greater than the chance
of them being Cannon for the peasant
number one million three hundred and
seventy three thousand whose Favela was
sacked and destroyed
that's a brilliant one I love that one
yeah absolutely
um I was I was reading this uh this
article yesterday about Bronze Age
pervert Yeah I read it as well I read
the same I read the same article yeah
yeah it's uh it's quite funny because
for your audience who might not know who
he is so he's a sort of far right figure
and when I say far right I actually mean
genuinely fire right not the kind of far
right that you'll see on Wikipedia you
know but actual far right like he's a
he's a neo-reactionary so he's like this
guy basically believes that a group of
strong men should rule over everybody
with absolute Authority
um essentially and he's openly fascist
and stuff so uh this guy's become quite
popular sort of on the right and um
particularly um among certain people in
the Trump White House he was quite
popular they used to pass out passed
around this book um uh Brian's age
mindset and uh he his whole thing is
basically about being strong it's about
um you know working out and having a
massive physique like his his avatar on
on Twitter is like this Hench like
jacked uh guy basically and he's all
about like you know um cultivating
physical strength and basically the
strongest should should Rule and the
weak should perish and all this and it's
hilarious because
his identity was actually
um sort of revealed against his wishes
and he's this guy called amariu who's
like a I think a Romanian uh immigrant
to the U.S and he's basically his actual
appearance he's he's like some scorny
little sort of pale kid like you know
who's who's nothing like he was
presenting himself out to be on Twitter
and on sort of you know on his Caribbean
Rhythms podcast because he was making
out like he was this massive bodybuilder
like Beefcake you know Monster basically
like a barbarian that's what he was his
whole thing is based around but in real
life he's like this really wimpy looking
like scrawny kid and like it's
absolutely hilarious because I think
that a lot of these people who claim
that they want to live in these you know
old sort of Genghis Khan style uh worlds
where you know it's just all about
brutality a lot of them wouldn't survive
like uh you know even a couple of days
they would be landed precisely on what
Alex started having an argument about
online so he came up with with half of
this and then I fleshed it out and gave
it the name
um and he was having an argument with
the at in sales co uh Twitter account
which is super super like uh
antagonistic and it like something
really fascinating to observe absolutely
fascinating to observe to be honest
he's having this big argument with them
and his point was hang on a second so
you are unsuccessful in the competence
dominance hierarchy and socio-sexually
with uh socioeconomically in terms of
being able to attract women sexually in
2023
and somehow the belief is that half a
millennia ago
in 1523
you would have done better that you like
a guy twice your size would have worn
you to [ __ ] a girl with like there is
there he would have he would have
happily beheaded you he would have
happily taken your what you know so I I
do think that it's just an important
redress to the balance that things were
you know it was a purer time it was a
better time don't don't get me wrong
I think that a lot of the people who
claim to want to live in a sort of
idyllic past are really yearning for
their childhood I think another a lot of
time because when they say that they
want a simpler time a simpler world that
is essentially their childhood that's a
world where
things were much simpler where you know
they didn't have to worry with all about
all the kind of complexities of
adulthood and all that kind of stuff so
this is me being kind of armchair
psychologist here but like I I do think
that a lot of people really are secretly
yearning for their childhood when they
claim to want to return to this idyllic
past because this idyllic past didn't
actually ever exist it's always been
brutal like I mean there was this one
really um there's a this this kind of
far right another far right uh um lady
she's half Indian I think her name's
Mega or something and she's a she's
always tweeting about how the past was
so much better than the present and she
wrote this one thing about how um
you know like in the past it was much
easier to grow food because all you had
to do was just have your own little
patch of land and then you could grow
any food you wanted and you know you had
enough to feel your whole family and
everything and it's just complete
nonsense because
the kinds of in the past food was so
hard to grow like you had to have the
perfect soil it had to with the perfect
pH uh you know you had to you had to
constantly ensure that insects weren't
getting at the food pests and stuff
um you had to ensure that the weather
was right there were so many things that
would just go wrong things that we take
for granted now right now we've got
pesticides we've got fertilizers uh
we've got like greenhouses we've got uh
UV sorry infrared lights we've got all
this um different stuff that helps stuff
grow right we can grow stuff at length
now we can grow as much food as we want
but this wasn't always the case it
wasn't food wasn't always there's
plentiful in the past your crops could
fail like within a day like you know you
could you could be you could have a
massive field of crops and within a day
they could get ruined by a single flood
you know it was we were completely at
the mercy of nature um you know and
people don't seem to realize this people
seem to think that oh you know living in
the past is just like um living around
nature man you know like just basically
yeah free love like the people and this
is true of the trads on the right as
well as as the kind of the kind of
hippies that you might find who are more
on the left but like it's it's this sort
of idealization of the past one that you
just don't one that doesn't reflect
reality I wonder if a lot of the stuff I
wonder if we could fold in that like the
horticulturalists history fantasy as
well or that the agriculturalist history
fantasy as well as the Alphas
exactly you know there's for instance
like there you know there's
if you look at sort of the famines that
are happening in places like Sudan for
instance and Somalia those things were
widespread they were happening
everywhere at one point
um and the only reason they don't happen
in the west anymore is because we have
the technology to prevent them from
happening so this is not like oh you
know we're just looking at uh to to
because Nature's on our side and nature
wants us to eat well no nature doesn't
give a [ __ ] about us you know Nature's
Nature's desires are not aligned with us
if it wants to ruin our crops it will
just ruin our crops it doesn't care
about what humans want and you know
entire populations in the past died of
starvation we are lucky because we are
the ones that descended from those who
just happen to to make it here's another
way to look at it so for the people that
are on the left that would maybe um you
know the climate 100 years ago it was so
much more balanced look at these extreme
weather events that we're having etc etc
climate related deaths have decreased by
98 in the last century there's been a
50x decrease and more people die from
cold weather than dry from hot weather
more people die from cold than die from
heat and there's been a 50 50x decrease
in climate related deaths over the last
century so you know I think yeah you're
right there's there's something going on
whereby
if
if you can convince yourself that a past
time would have been better
it alleviates some of the pressure of
now not being as good as it could be
because you are no longer culpable for
the reason that it's not as good as it
could be ah I've outsourced this the the
challenges that I'm facing to the fact
that there is something structural or
systemic or systematic that's stopping
it from happening
yeah absolutely I think there is a
desire for people to blame
to shift the blame to things outside of
themselves and um I mean I'll cover this
in in my my most recent article
um where we've seen this happen actually
a bit more it's actually quite
disturbing how um I think Jonathan
height and Gene twang uh they found that
there has been an externalization of the
locus of control so for your audience uh
the locus of control is the degree to
which one believes that they as opposed
to external circumstances shape their
Destiny so people who have an internal
locus of control they believe that their
own decisions are what dictate what
happens in their life and people who
have an external locus of control they
believe that what they do doesn't really
matter because their lives are dictated
by what happens in the external world
and interestingly uh there seems to have
been an externalization of the locus of
control over the past sort of 40 years
and particularly since the 1990s
um I actually think that people in the
in the distant past didn't have the
luxury of having an ex most of the time
I mean there was still scapegoating and
things like that when people could form
tribes but I think when you're trying to
survive you don't have that luxury you
don't have the luxury of uh you know
blaming other things you have to take
responsibility for for what's going
wrong in your life but when you arrive
in in a world like ours where pretty
much everything is done for you
you have that luxury you can now
suddenly start blaming everything else
except for yourself and that's why I
think we have these people who are
yearning for this distant past where you
know everything was in their eyes much
better because they can easily just
blame the Modern Age it's easy to blame
identity because you don't have to take
responsibility for me because virginity
is doing everything for you modernity is
growing your food modernity is keeping
you safe from uh invasions modernity is
keeping you warm you know modernity is
giving you the information that you need
to help yourself in pretty much any
situation that you could possibly find
yourself in modernity is a map for you
that you can find your way through
anywhere you know modernity gives you
pretty much everything and that allows
you the luxury to blame modernity for
your problems every single morning for
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