Video summary
The podcast features a deep dive into the concept of "Young Male Syndrome," described as one of the most significant memes for the coming decade, characterized by heightened risk-taking, reduced self-control, and increased criminality typically observed in men aged 15 to 24. This phenomenon is presented as an evolutionary impulse where young men lash out physically after minor injuries or insults because fighting back against intentional agents was historically advantageous, even if modern responses like punching walls are maladaptive. The discussion highlights that this syndrome manifests globally across cultures and societies, with statistics showing peak rates of hospitalization for violence and auto accidents occurring within this specific age bracket regardless of economic status. Specific behavioral examples illustrate how young men attempt to signal toughness through dangerous actions such as not wearing seat belts when accompanied by male peers or taking excessive risks while crossing streets in the presence of women. The conversation references a study indicating that men are twice as likely to be killed simply crossing the street compared to women, and another finding regarding seat belt usage where males feel less compelled to wear them with other men present than alone or with female passengers. These behaviors are interpreted through an evolutionary psychology lens, suggesting that young men seek to demonstrate strength in potential violent conflicts against rivals rather than merely impressing women, leading to a surplus of fitness being channeled into risky activities like driving without restraints. The dialogue explores the modern context where this syndrome is often exacerbated by isolation and disconnection from traditional structures, noting an alarming rise in "sexless," unemployed young men who retreat into video games, pornography, and junk food consumption rather than seeking employment or relationships. While some argue that online gaming communities like *World of Warcraft* provide a virtual outlet for these coalitional behaviors, the speakers express concern over the loss of real-world status-seeking opportunities and the potential for violence among those feeling dispossessed. The transcript touches upon historical solutions to similar demographic imbalances, such as Portugal in the 1800s exporting surplus young men on galleon ships to pioneer new worlds, contrasting this with modern challenges where technology hijacks natural curiosity but fails to provide sufficient structure or purpose for many males. A significant portion of the discussion addresses the rise of "incel" ideology and its classification as a domestic terror threat by some groups, though data does not currently show an uptick in murder rates linked directly to these ideologies despite their rhetoric. The speakers analyze why young men might volunteer for difficult experiences like military service or endure painful training periods only to later regret them upon reflection, suggesting that structure and discipline are often necessary character-building elements even if they feel undesirable at the time. Ultimately, the conversation underscores a tension between modern freedom allowing individuals to opt out of societal expectations and the historical necessity of overcoming youthful impulsivity through hardship, raising questions about whether future generations will find fulfillment in their current nihilistic comfort or eventually recognize the value of past struggles.
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you've been looking at a lot of young
male syndrome recently I think this is
going to be one of the most important
memes of the coming decade and both of
us have been talking about it at least
in part for maybe like three or four
years I think online but it's picking up
steam what have you learned digging
deeper into the modern conception of
young male syndrome and how it's sort of
manifested what have you learned yeah
yeah well so so yeah the young male
syndrome this constellation of traits
that are associated with uh a certain
period of time in young men's lives
typically the teens in the early 20s uh
you know heightened levels of
risk-taking reduced self-control and
inhibition uh if you look at rates of
criminality for example uh they tend to
Peak at around age 19 and this is true
regardless of uh culture and Society
sort of all across the world in
non-industrialized hund gather
communities and all the way up to sort
of wealthy and Rich societies that it's
the young men if you look at who's
committing the crime in that Society
it's it's in evitably going to be sort
of manage say roughly 15 to maybe 24
even things like uh like like so this is
just in the US context likelihood of
being hospitalized for punching walls uh
there was a nice graph I saw uh and I
and I posted it online um of you know
the sort of the distribution of of of um
young or or men just men in general
being hospitalized for and it's all
concentrated again 15 to 24 it's like
you know 10-year-olds aren't being
hospitalized for punching walls and Nei
are six-year olds it's all that sort of
young male group and you know I I'll
admit I've punched walls before yeah did
you see uh Alexander daty posted quote
tweeted an image this morning that was a
mother asking how she could help her son
and it was just a photo of his bedroom
wall and this bedroom wall was just hole
after hole after hole and then the door
had a hole in it and it's like I mean it
looked like a sufficiently flimsy
American house that the hospitalization
risk was quite low but that the
decorating risk might be quite High yeah
yeah yeah that's uh in that case I mean
that yeah that that sounds like it would
require some some serious interv serious
yeah intervention some serious treatment
what I find interesting is uh especially
for young men that's sort of that this
this is I think an expression of the
young male syndrome is when a young man
uh experiencing some sort of uh usually
like a minor injury and then their
immediate response is to lash out so
like I saw this with some of my friends
where um you know like maybe uh I know
something simple like like they
accidentally uh poke themselves in the
hand or something and then their
immediate response is to punch something
so they hurt themselves and they're
pissed and then they punch something and
and I think that this is basically a a
misfiring of this kind of evolutionary
impulse of of if a if an intentional
agent hurts you it actually is uh
advantageous uh to to fight back
response right exactly so so if uh I
don't know like the cactus plant stabs
me you know maybe punching the wall is
unwise but if you do something to upset
me and then I immediately respond
physically that can actually be um an
Adaptive strategy so I think like that
is you know this is this is speculation
but this is what I think is going on
there because otherwise it doesn't make
sense right you're injured let me let me
break my hand now it makes no sense
so uh so yeah so the young male syndrome
yeah sort of reduce inhibition increased
risk-taking criminality uh risky driving
um you know if you look at uh who who's
arrested for drinking and driving who uh
gets into the most auto accidents who is
the most likely to be killed simply
crossing the street yeah so so it's yeah
men are twice as likely to be killed
simply crossing the street as women um
so there are so many sort of different
different factors here and there was one
on on the seat Bel point there was an
interesting study which found that men
are less likely to wear seat belts when
there's when they're accompanied by a
male passenger relative to when they're
sitting by themselves or when they're
sitting with a with a with a woman what
do you think that's saying I think that
is uh one possibility here is uh is
essentially the attempt to Signal
toughness uh that you know you of course
like there's a lot of interesting work
here and a lot of discussion and and
debate around this
um because of course men want to signal
to women and we want to signal that
we're you know strong and can acquire
resources and all those kinds of um sort
of Bedrock uh um findings in
evolutionary psychology but then we also
want to impress other men too you know
you want to show that you would be a you
know in in the ancestral context you
want to show that you would be good in a
in a violent conflict against a rival
Coalition or if you're uh big game
hunting you want to show that you're
strong and so I think the way that it
might manifest itself in the Modern Age
I don't need to wear a seat belt you
know I'm going to show my friends and my
mates like I don't need to wear this two
rocket ship going towards me hasn't got
[ __ ] we both became fans of that David
putt study oh yeah that was able to
predict the uh number of sexual partners
based on not female ratings of
attractiveness of male faces but other
male ratings of toughness of the same
male faces super cool study that the
women's attractiveness rating had
basically zero predictive power but that
the man's toughness rating
had like quite a good bit of predictive
power yeah was it you that taught me or
was it Dunbar that taught me about um
men's Street crossing in the presence or
without the presence of women H that was
probably done bar okay so this this this
study is so much fun so they got um
crossing the street is really
interesting because it's a relatively
discreet variable you have distance of
vehicle from Street crossing and then
you have uh like the presence or lack of
presence of a female and Men the diff
difference in how close the vehicles
would get and men would prepared to
cross the street in the presence of a
woman was like a third of what it was
when there was no women around like look
at all of this you know Surplus Fitness
that I have I'm going to cross the
street while this car is only 15 yards
away from me or whatever yeah yeah yeah
yeah although I think yeah the young
male syndrome is yeah I think it it sort
of depends on the context but yeah it is
most likely to sort of be expressed when
you're trying to impress women or when
you're trying to impress men again so I
don't think yeah it would I don't think
it would necessarily impress young women
uh you know that you're driving without
a seat Bel right and I think maybe on
some level guys understand that but with
with with it wouldn't necess it's not so
much that you're impressing your friend
when you put when you don't wear the
seat belt is that if you do you might be
mocked or made fun of or that what's you
know are you know what are you wearing a
seat belt for that kind of especially
you know 19-year-old guys you know that
kind of thing um and so it's not so much
trying to look t but just not to look
weak very interesting okay so but young
male syndrome specifically seems to be
uh worsened
amongst sexless
dispossessed rambunctious young guys
Coalition together in small groups to go
and set [ __ ] on fire and push over
granny yeah yeah yeah and we yeah yeah
that's uh it's you know when a when a
young man is isolated sort of by himself
there's only so much damage he can do
but it's sort of the the r the risk
becomes exponentially greater sort of as
that as as he sort of partners with
other men and they collaborate and start
to plan and so yeah this is uh I mean so
so you had this this interesting term
about the the sedation male sedation
hypothesis hpis it's in a a study at the
moment with bus and William they're
testing it interesting interesting yeah
I mean I'm just thinking about because I
remember when you first told me about
that something that had come to mind is
um you know I had friends I mean this is
you know sort of back in the I don't
know if people still play this game
World of Warcraft
but I remember I had a couple of friends
who like Lost Years of their life to
this game and they were like and they
the way that they spoke you know as you
know when you told me about this I
thought like yeah these young guys you
know this is you know 18 19 this was
years ago but they would say like all
right you know I got to I got to hop off
the phone I'm going on a raid you know I
got a raid scheduled you know like well
you don't have a raid scheduled you have
you know seven hours of sitting in your
laptop chair computer scheduled but in
his mind he's like I'm going with my
other internet friends and we're going
to go you know raid this Castle or
whatever they do in this game and I
could see that yeah this is a sort of an
expression of that or an example of that
of you know just young guys who
ordinarily might be out causing trouble
and instead they're just online uh and
that's how they do it you know I saw
this funny this funny post on Twitter um
and this guy you know he said something
about you know back in the day if you
were like a hyper curious young man uh
you know you you'd basically start like
uh trying to document the like visible
differences between the mushrooms uh
right around your house and today what
they do is like try to collect the Rings
in a Sonic game you know like speedrun
Sonic uh and so yeah I think the the
virtual world is sucking in a lot of a
lot of uh angry and aggressive men but
we may also be losing like that sort of
the pattern matching sort of
systematizing absolutely yeah well it's
just it's managed to hijack an awful lot
of the status seeking coalitional uh
curiosity adventurous behavior that
young men are you know th all of history
has been kind of acclaimed for you know
you look at um my favorite example of
the solution for young male syndrome was
Portugal in the 1800s what did they do
there they the first son was allowed to
there was a an imbalance in the sex
ratio okay and they knew that if son one
married because he was the oldest son
but son two three and four perhaps uh
weren't permitted to marry and there
weren't enough women to marry that this
was going to cause problems so they just
put them on gallion ships and said go
you know Pioneer the new world away you
go so they just they literally exported
the young male Problem by putting the
men on ships and giving them this sense
of adventure you know channeling their
aggression outward against either a new
world or or political enemies or
whatever it was and uh yeah I think that
there is still a question Vincent came
on the show mutual friend came on and
he's been researching and he says you
know every single time that we have high
rates of sexlessness and blah blah blah
we have an increase in Associated
violence and it's just at the moment and
someone may tell me that I'm wrong but
it doesn't seem to be there in the data
right we have incel blackpill ideology
there was this period maybe about two
years ago where uh they were even uh
donate claimed to be a domestic Terror
threat I think uh in cells uh they were
a terrorist group right I saw that
um where's like show me the violence
show me the uptick in the violence now
that's to say that hasn't been an uptick
in murders and stuff but I think a lot
of that can be attributed to the yeah
exactly like the receding of police from
inner cities right um yeah yeah I wonder
if the so so on its face it seems silly
right that the incels is a domestic
Terror threat but I wonder if they were
just sort of if they were actually
familiar with the research on the young
male syndrome and the sort of historical
p i mean maybe I'm giving them too much
credit but but they essentially they
were sort of anticipating the
possibility and they're just sort of
getting out ahead of it and saying well
you have a lot of young sexless angry
young men
and historically that's been the you
know a group that's been dangerous so
let's just designate that label on them
but I think yeah in the Modern Age with
with technology with video games with
porn with scrolling phones I mean yeah
I've seen sort of research on uh what
young men like jobless young men do um
and most of the time they're scrolling
their phones playing computer games
watching porn overeating junk food you
see Nicholas abats work on that
uh I haven't is this this is related to
the men like men not working or whatever
it is whatever it's called just awesome
but yeah it's like some insane
percentage of men are neats not in
education employment or training uh but
also our Prime working age like I think
it's 22 to 50 um and it's this unseen
because unemployment rates are
relatively low in America but hiding in
that data is a very unusual cohort of
men who are electing to be unemployed
they're living on uh social welfare in
one form or another or Andor still
living at home spending an insane amount
of hours per year playing uh video games
and while they're playing video games
50% of that time is either on
prescription medication or whilst taking
weed so you just have a very it's like
okay here's the Big Data okay well
what's that like how's this constituted
who are the component people that make
up this data and you go hang on a second
like what's this it's like I think it's
like 8 million or 14 million men Prime
working age men electing to retreat from
the employment market now we put this
episode up and uh a lot of guys that are
maybe a part of this cohort are
tangential to this cohort commented and
you know the sentiment very strongly was
why should I contribute to a world which
doesn't value me uh why am I going to
work to get a a 5'3 200 and 10 pound uh
woman who's already gone through two
marriages and got four kids uh you know
just very despondent evidently guys who
don't see much future for themselves and
uh it was it was really eye openening
because largely the comments on Modern
wisdom tend to be you pretty personal
growthy agentic highly Sovereign
upwardly mobile Etc um but this episode
like blasted out of the algorithm into
the wider internet or maybe it got
shared on some forums or whatever and it
was very very interesting and I got to
see a you know I got a window into into
this world and it didn't seem these guys
didn't seem very happy um they were
maybe uh comfortable in their nihilism
uh but I don't think that they were
particularly fulfilled I mean they may
be comfortable when they're young but
there's I you know I'd be curious
whether sort of as as we move forward um
you know decade or two decades later I
mean it's one thing to be a a neat when
you're 19 or 23 but when you're 43 or 51
and you're single maybe you've never had
a girlfriend and you've spent most of
the last you know several decades just
playing video games and and and
wallowing in Collective misery on forums
and stuff yeah I think there's I mean
now in the Modern Age we have so much
Freedom you don't have to work anymore
you don't have I mean if you don't want
to if you live in a modern Rich Society
um you can collect sort of extended
unemployment or maybe live with your
parents or um find ways to I mean you
know very few people now very few young
men are sort of literally starving or
having to steal food to survive and uh
and now if you want to do something
difficult you have to make the choice to
do it rather than um sort of uh uh be be
pressured sort of by by external factors
I saw this I saw this this Tik Tok video
I'm not on Tik Tok but people sometimes
send these to me I saw this one this
this this uh this young guy I think he
was in the Army US Army and he was just
sort of walking through his barracks and
uh and he was asking these these other
these other young young guys these young
recruits uh you know if you could talk
to your recruiter right now what would
you say and uh you know these you know
these other young guys were like I told
him to go [ __ ] himself or like God this
sucks or why did I do this so on and so
forth and I'm watching this I'm like I
know exactly what he's talking about
because I was there I was you know i'
had enlisted I was in the Air Force and
I remember especially like the first two
years are just awful like once you get a
bit of rank and a bit of responsibility
like once you go through the training
Purp stop eating [ __ ] yeah exactly then
you're like you know then you're okay
but the first couple of years really
suck and so I knew like these were all
very young guys they were still sleeping
in bunk beds and I would have said the
same thing you know I'm glad that Tik
Tok didn't exist back then but I'm
watching this and I'm thinking like
these guys don't understand right in in
5 years from now they're going to be
glad that they ate [ __ ] for however many
years and they did this they went
through this experience um and and I
think a lot of young a lot of young guys
won't even go that far like they won't
even list which is fine you know
everyone has their own sort of make your
own choices but in that moment I
understood that like this sucks why did
I do this like this is awful and then
you go through it and you can sort of in
hindsight go back and say like it was it
was a character forming experience it
was good for me like I was an idiot when
I was 19 and I probably needed a bit of
that structure a bit of that discipline
I needed to have my ass kicked a little
bit and uh and I think yeah like you
don't but and and those guys volunteer
to do that right you have to choose to
do undergo that experience you've
already pre-selected for someone who's
got the agency to get moving yeah yeah I
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MW thank you very much for tuning in if
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