"MAGA insists there’s no time for grace when you’re locked into a life-or-death power struggle. First off, we’re not."
I have to remind myself of this a lot, because I'm a big fan of a musician (not a big name but has more followers than Max) who fits the far left British Gen Z woman stereotype to a T but who has kept their views quiet for a bit because they're trying to get a visa to stay in America.
I know it'd be easy to send some damning screenshots to the immigration services but like you said we're not in a serious enough situation to ruin someone's life over politics. You're one hundred percent right when you say that as long as our culture is in lockstep with our (liberal) institutions then nothing will change for the better. Until that changes deporting one insufferable liberal isn't going to fix anything wrong with America.
I tend to trace much of the discord and competitiveness between the sexes to the Second World War. Women entered the workforce en mass because men were away fighting. There was no way to undo this, and all of a sudden men had to compete with other men AND women for jobs. So I can sort of see why there is this competition. But my own attitude and experience in the workforce was to present myself as the best possible person to employ, regardless of sex. Follow all that up with an economy that was evolving to make 2 income families a necessity, and you have the makings of the mess we find ourselves in now. Max, you have a much more positive view of social media than I do. It is also a crucial piece of the divisiveness we're experiencing; political as well as relations between the sexes. I believe it is how the ongoing subversion of the family is being fueled, and it is corrosive.
That's an interesting theory, associating the male-female competition with WWII. And it makes sense. You can't introduce women in mass quantities to the workforce without repercussions. There's literally no more revolutionary a force than war.
The two-income thing is a bit of red-herring. It's actually the one-income household that's a historical anomaly. For nearly all of history, both husband and wife had to contribute to make ends meet. Being a homemaker was in many ways a luxury. But men and women also didn't encroach on one another's spheres.
Social media has lots of downsides. I'm just making the point it has upsides as well.
It's cued to the last 3 minutes or so where he talks about the differences between men and women: not skills; interests. There is approx a 1 s.d. difference between men and women in preference for things vs people respectively. 1 s.d. is a huge variance in statistics. There is no cross-sex psychological attribute that even comes close.
This is what that looks like: https://claude.ai/share/8ea7c29f-369e-4331-b2a4-90660ce32958 He's right that the tails contain all the action, and the tails at +/-2σ are sex skewed 17:1. Which is why therapists are female and mechanical engineers are male by about 10:1 ratios each.
1 s.d. means we're about 65% alike psychologically (important, since successful communication -- and mating -- requires psychological overlap) but different enough to really add value to each other as a team. Almost as if men and women were intentionally designed to collaborate (not compete) with each other.
BTW: As he mentions later in the video, the interest differences are clearly biological not cultural. The Scandinavians (most sexually egalitarian society ever) have among the largest interest variance by sex.
Both Left and Right did Jordan Peterson dirty. The Left did him dirty because he dared be a genuine scientist as opposed to a credentialed idealogue. The Right did him dirty because he wasn't an extremist.
Scandinavia also sees some of the widest differences in political views between men and women. Women are super-Woke, which is strange given how homogeneous Scandinavian society is. There's the world famous attitude held by Scandinavian, particularly Swedish, women towards mass immigration, which is highly favorable despite the obvious failures of the policy. The nihilistic mind in me says these women are trying to get back at the men of their society. For what reason, I don't know.
Now that's even more interesting. You would really expect a ethnically homogenous, sexually egalitarian society to share political views.
Again though, I suspect it's a tails thing: the most woke activists are overwhelmingly female; the most anti-immigrant activists are overwhelmingly male; and there's about 60% overlap of views overall between the sexes. Immigration especially will break this way since it's a "things vs people" issue.
1 s.d. really is huge. It translates to a 30 point difference in poling. On an issue with this distribution of views, if 50% of the men answer a polling question "yes", 85% of the women will do the same (or only 15% of it breaks the other way.)
I mean I often make reference to a study showing that gender differences and gender attitudes are much narrower in societies with more traditional outlook on gender roles. The same study shows countries with a more egalitarian outlook on gender roles - Scandinavia - have a greater divergence between male and female.
It makes sense, too. If you decide that gender relations isn't a matter to be managed, if men and women shouldn't be held to distinct, biologically-determined standards, but instead ought to be put onto a level playing field, that's going to expose gender differences. Traditional gender roles accept gender differences while finding ways of offsetting them. Egalitarian gender roles rejects gender differences while completely exposing them at the same time.
Ironically, the Left believes the state should manage gender relations, as long as the feminists are in charge.
I like that idea: traditional societies accept but attempt to mitigate cross-sex differences, but egalitarian ones can't mitigate what they insist doesn't exist, so they end up (perversely) exacerbating then. That makes total sense, and is very much not-obvious. The leftover economist in me really likes that. Cool, Max.
The other thing is that societies where gender roles are well-defined is that there exist responsibilities both men and women are expected to uphold. The existence of expectations plus gender roles smooths over male-female friction. I often find that men and women seem to have no problems in these countries working alongside one another, despite relatively more conservative norms. Rules aren't for fools.
I'm also of the belief that gender roles in the U.S. and West aren't as fraught as they often seem. At the same time, there's an increasing discomfort with which men and women interact with one another. Men are worried about saying the wrong thing, women are worried about being taken advantage of. There's a certain element of fear and loathing casting a shadow over it all. It's quite unfortunate.
There's, of course, no place in the world where gender relations are entirely hunky-dory. Unless fighting for literal survival daily, men and women will butt heads to a certain extent, far more expected in liberal societies. But that's also why the Left's pursuit of gender equality is completely nonsensical. Ultimately, biology picks winners and losers. Feminism is basically extreme discomfort with this reality.
Slightly unrelated, but still somewhat relevant - Thailand has comparatively liberal abortion laws. However, abortion is rare because it remains a cultural taboo and Buddhism is actually quite anti-abortion, more explicitly so than Christianity (which fashions itself as "pro-life" as opposed to "anti-abortion"). In the West, politics is downstream of culture, but we also see how this really only applies where politics has become a more dominant force in our lives.
I recently saw that movie for the first time and I just loved it. Thank you for that clip - it reminded me of what an innocent, beautiful movie it was.
I've thought about the "pause" in culture a lot recently.
I remember riding in the car with my mom back in the late 80's when I was in junior high. She loved listening to classic rock from when she was in high school: Rolling Stones, Mamas and the Papas, Diana Ross, that kind of stuff. I thought then that stuff was ANCIENT.
But it was only 20 years old. At the time my mom was in her late 30's.
I'm over 50 now and the stuff I listened to in high school is now over 35 years old but it doesn't feel ancient. I'm sure my kids think it is, but there's something I can't quite put my finger on that makes that stuff feel more contemporary than it really is, and I don't think it's only my personal perspective.
Nirvana music is over 30 years old now. Back in their heyday, music that was 30 years old was from the late-50s and early-60s. It's crazy to think about.
Jimmy Eat World's Bleed American album recently turned 25. Back in 2001, 25 years ago would've put you in 1976. Not only was that very early in the disco age, we all thought the '70s were ancient history back then. Yet I haven't heard anyone describe the 2000s as ancient history. That said, I'm noticing that when TV shows do flashbacks these days, they go back to the 2000s, which is crazy to think about.
Then there's that thing about how the "Wonder Years" was set 20 years prior to its release and how if a "Wonder Years"-type show was made today, it'd be set in the 2000s. It doesn't compute in our minds because there was so much more of a difference between 1968 and 1988 (when "Wonder Years" debuted) than there's between 2006 and 2026.
I do wonder what Gen. Z thinks of '90s and '00s culture, whether they see it as "old people stuff" also. I haven't heard any of them say so. But I also see that the stuff doesn't resonate with them, which, for me, a Millennial, is pretty jarring to see.
It's also interesting how enduring '60s, '70s, and '80s culture has proven, even more so than '90s culture. You still routinely hear music, the type your mother enjoyed, featured on movie and TV show soundtracks, despite that stuff being over a half-century old at this point. We finally got a Michael Jackson biopic this year, over 40 years after the height of his career. Maybe that's just the fact Boomers and Xers remain the silent majority. It makes you wonder how much longer it can endure.
One other thing I find interesting is that Millennials don't seem as wedded to the culture of their childhood as previous generations. We, myself included, are very good at keeping up with the times. I think being able to leave the past in the past is an important life skill and I feel like Millennials are the best at it. Maybe it says something about how easy we've really had it?
Anyone who is surprised at Thais behaving badly has no comprehension of Thai history. Anyone who is surprised at racism in other cultures is a naive idiot.
"MAGA insists there’s no time for grace when you’re locked into a life-or-death power struggle. First off, we’re not."
I have to remind myself of this a lot, because I'm a big fan of a musician (not a big name but has more followers than Max) who fits the far left British Gen Z woman stereotype to a T but who has kept their views quiet for a bit because they're trying to get a visa to stay in America.
I know it'd be easy to send some damning screenshots to the immigration services but like you said we're not in a serious enough situation to ruin someone's life over politics. You're one hundred percent right when you say that as long as our culture is in lockstep with our (liberal) institutions then nothing will change for the better. Until that changes deporting one insufferable liberal isn't going to fix anything wrong with America.
I tend to trace much of the discord and competitiveness between the sexes to the Second World War. Women entered the workforce en mass because men were away fighting. There was no way to undo this, and all of a sudden men had to compete with other men AND women for jobs. So I can sort of see why there is this competition. But my own attitude and experience in the workforce was to present myself as the best possible person to employ, regardless of sex. Follow all that up with an economy that was evolving to make 2 income families a necessity, and you have the makings of the mess we find ourselves in now. Max, you have a much more positive view of social media than I do. It is also a crucial piece of the divisiveness we're experiencing; political as well as relations between the sexes. I believe it is how the ongoing subversion of the family is being fueled, and it is corrosive.
That's an interesting theory, associating the male-female competition with WWII. And it makes sense. You can't introduce women in mass quantities to the workforce without repercussions. There's literally no more revolutionary a force than war.
The two-income thing is a bit of red-herring. It's actually the one-income household that's a historical anomaly. For nearly all of history, both husband and wife had to contribute to make ends meet. Being a homemaker was in many ways a luxury. But men and women also didn't encroach on one another's spheres.
Social media has lots of downsides. I'm just making the point it has upsides as well.
Men and women competing reminded me of this Jordan Peterson video I've used a few times: https://youtu.be/PgIErTULONc?t=174
It's cued to the last 3 minutes or so where he talks about the differences between men and women: not skills; interests. There is approx a 1 s.d. difference between men and women in preference for things vs people respectively. 1 s.d. is a huge variance in statistics. There is no cross-sex psychological attribute that even comes close.
This is what that looks like: https://claude.ai/share/8ea7c29f-369e-4331-b2a4-90660ce32958 He's right that the tails contain all the action, and the tails at +/-2σ are sex skewed 17:1. Which is why therapists are female and mechanical engineers are male by about 10:1 ratios each.
1 s.d. means we're about 65% alike psychologically (important, since successful communication -- and mating -- requires psychological overlap) but different enough to really add value to each other as a team. Almost as if men and women were intentionally designed to collaborate (not compete) with each other.
BTW: As he mentions later in the video, the interest differences are clearly biological not cultural. The Scandinavians (most sexually egalitarian society ever) have among the largest interest variance by sex.
Both Left and Right did Jordan Peterson dirty. The Left did him dirty because he dared be a genuine scientist as opposed to a credentialed idealogue. The Right did him dirty because he wasn't an extremist.
Scandinavia also sees some of the widest differences in political views between men and women. Women are super-Woke, which is strange given how homogeneous Scandinavian society is. There's the world famous attitude held by Scandinavian, particularly Swedish, women towards mass immigration, which is highly favorable despite the obvious failures of the policy. The nihilistic mind in me says these women are trying to get back at the men of their society. For what reason, I don't know.
Now that's even more interesting. You would really expect a ethnically homogenous, sexually egalitarian society to share political views.
Again though, I suspect it's a tails thing: the most woke activists are overwhelmingly female; the most anti-immigrant activists are overwhelmingly male; and there's about 60% overlap of views overall between the sexes. Immigration especially will break this way since it's a "things vs people" issue.
1 s.d. really is huge. It translates to a 30 point difference in poling. On an issue with this distribution of views, if 50% of the men answer a polling question "yes", 85% of the women will do the same (or only 15% of it breaks the other way.)
I mean I often make reference to a study showing that gender differences and gender attitudes are much narrower in societies with more traditional outlook on gender roles. The same study shows countries with a more egalitarian outlook on gender roles - Scandinavia - have a greater divergence between male and female.
It makes sense, too. If you decide that gender relations isn't a matter to be managed, if men and women shouldn't be held to distinct, biologically-determined standards, but instead ought to be put onto a level playing field, that's going to expose gender differences. Traditional gender roles accept gender differences while finding ways of offsetting them. Egalitarian gender roles rejects gender differences while completely exposing them at the same time.
Ironically, the Left believes the state should manage gender relations, as long as the feminists are in charge.
I like that idea: traditional societies accept but attempt to mitigate cross-sex differences, but egalitarian ones can't mitigate what they insist doesn't exist, so they end up (perversely) exacerbating then. That makes total sense, and is very much not-obvious. The leftover economist in me really likes that. Cool, Max.
The other thing is that societies where gender roles are well-defined is that there exist responsibilities both men and women are expected to uphold. The existence of expectations plus gender roles smooths over male-female friction. I often find that men and women seem to have no problems in these countries working alongside one another, despite relatively more conservative norms. Rules aren't for fools.
I'm also of the belief that gender roles in the U.S. and West aren't as fraught as they often seem. At the same time, there's an increasing discomfort with which men and women interact with one another. Men are worried about saying the wrong thing, women are worried about being taken advantage of. There's a certain element of fear and loathing casting a shadow over it all. It's quite unfortunate.
There's, of course, no place in the world where gender relations are entirely hunky-dory. Unless fighting for literal survival daily, men and women will butt heads to a certain extent, far more expected in liberal societies. But that's also why the Left's pursuit of gender equality is completely nonsensical. Ultimately, biology picks winners and losers. Feminism is basically extreme discomfort with this reality.
Slightly unrelated, but still somewhat relevant - Thailand has comparatively liberal abortion laws. However, abortion is rare because it remains a cultural taboo and Buddhism is actually quite anti-abortion, more explicitly so than Christianity (which fashions itself as "pro-life" as opposed to "anti-abortion"). In the West, politics is downstream of culture, but we also see how this really only applies where politics has become a more dominant force in our lives.
I recently saw that movie for the first time and I just loved it. Thank you for that clip - it reminded me of what an innocent, beautiful movie it was.
I've thought about the "pause" in culture a lot recently.
I remember riding in the car with my mom back in the late 80's when I was in junior high. She loved listening to classic rock from when she was in high school: Rolling Stones, Mamas and the Papas, Diana Ross, that kind of stuff. I thought then that stuff was ANCIENT.
But it was only 20 years old. At the time my mom was in her late 30's.
I'm over 50 now and the stuff I listened to in high school is now over 35 years old but it doesn't feel ancient. I'm sure my kids think it is, but there's something I can't quite put my finger on that makes that stuff feel more contemporary than it really is, and I don't think it's only my personal perspective.
A few years ago, one of my daughters played me several remakes or Nirvana songs. She didn't know they were remakes.
Nirvana music is over 30 years old now. Back in their heyday, music that was 30 years old was from the late-50s and early-60s. It's crazy to think about.
Jimmy Eat World's Bleed American album recently turned 25. Back in 2001, 25 years ago would've put you in 1976. Not only was that very early in the disco age, we all thought the '70s were ancient history back then. Yet I haven't heard anyone describe the 2000s as ancient history. That said, I'm noticing that when TV shows do flashbacks these days, they go back to the 2000s, which is crazy to think about.
Then there's that thing about how the "Wonder Years" was set 20 years prior to its release and how if a "Wonder Years"-type show was made today, it'd be set in the 2000s. It doesn't compute in our minds because there was so much more of a difference between 1968 and 1988 (when "Wonder Years" debuted) than there's between 2006 and 2026.
I do wonder what Gen. Z thinks of '90s and '00s culture, whether they see it as "old people stuff" also. I haven't heard any of them say so. But I also see that the stuff doesn't resonate with them, which, for me, a Millennial, is pretty jarring to see.
It's also interesting how enduring '60s, '70s, and '80s culture has proven, even more so than '90s culture. You still routinely hear music, the type your mother enjoyed, featured on movie and TV show soundtracks, despite that stuff being over a half-century old at this point. We finally got a Michael Jackson biopic this year, over 40 years after the height of his career. Maybe that's just the fact Boomers and Xers remain the silent majority. It makes you wonder how much longer it can endure.
One other thing I find interesting is that Millennials don't seem as wedded to the culture of their childhood as previous generations. We, myself included, are very good at keeping up with the times. I think being able to leave the past in the past is an important life skill and I feel like Millennials are the best at it. Maybe it says something about how easy we've really had it?
Anyone who is surprised at Thais behaving badly has no comprehension of Thai history. Anyone who is surprised at racism in other cultures is a naive idiot.
LOL Thai complain constantly about the bad behavior of Chinese.