Lyman Stone is on the record for attributing this directly to increased government incentives for marriage and children. He tends to be on that side of these debates though: that government incentives CAN make a real difference, especially if well-designed. To me, promoting marriage sounds like it is often going to be a better investment than trying to promote children directly. This probably goes double in NE Asian societies, where marital fertility is still reasonably high, and out-of-wedlock fertility is effectively zero.
The US tax/welfare-system, of course, penalizes marriage in many ways, especially for the lower/working-classes. I think one of the largest is that large subsidies exist for daycare, and they are designed such that they can only really be used by single mothers. I read somewhere that benefit might be worth upwards of $10,000/year.
Millennial, but I resonate with the Gen-Z male attitude you speak of. Many of us have abandoned the pursuit of “regular jobs” and “regular lives,” including marriage, because it has been communicated in so many ways that we’re not valued even when we want to positively contribute to society.
Even before the pandemic and Great Remote Leap Forward to online life, rejection and indifference defined much of formative experience.
Feeling distracted and lonely 8 hours a day in classrooms with dozens of rowdy students?
—You have a learning disability.
Feeling worn down from an endless cycle of thoughtful applications, interviews, and ghosting by employers paying offering $15 per hour?
—You’re being entitled.
Tired of being strung along by potential dates who just want to text/DM before going silent at the suggestion of an in-person meeting?
—Quit being toxic, Incel.
Men going their own way isn’t always about misogyny or laziness. Sometimes, it’s just people responding to the incentive structure they inhabit.
(Nods) Yeah, the frustration is real. I did online dating for *years* before I met my soon-to-be fiance, and the amount of ghosting is wild. I think 90% of the conversations I had ended with me replying to something she said and her just...not replying.
Seriously, at least do me the courtesy of cutting off the convo in the app/dating service, even if you don't want to say "Sorry, I don't think we'd work out." (95% of the time, that's what I did if I decided it would not be a good marriage.)
That having been said, that's no reason to quit--after all, it only has to work once.
Employers have taken on the same antisocial spirit as toxic dating app users: Express interest, exchange flattering messages, discuss the potential for an in-person meeting, never commit, stop responding to messages.
Just as cohabitation, “situationships” and friends with benefits are replacing marriages, full time permanent roles are being replaced by contract positions and gig work. Stability and security are being exchanged for convenience and optionality.
Technology unmoored from any consideration of social good now reigns over the public and private spheres of life.
I’m still amazed by the way Republicans fixated on preventing same sex marriage, yet made so little noise decrying the disinvestment from the real economy and its people. The religious devotion to Reagan-Thatcher “free market” ideology has done more to disrupt family formation than any blue-haired leftist could dream of.
Re: He likes to trade crypto and forex with high leverage.
Ugh. A casino mentality. Not a very adult attitude, though it's not rare. But when people cannot get ahead through normal maens they start grasping at straws.
Re: He’s not averse to MLMs
And that's even worse! Up in Michigan we used to call Amway, king of MLM pyramid schemes, "Scamway". It was banned across the border in Ontario.
Unlike other types of gambling which are guaranteed money sinks, you can make real money trading crypto. I would bet he's made money on it over the years. But that of course makes it more addictive.
Next comes david Brooks or dreher with another round of terrible advice that does nothing against systematic discrimination against males. Suck it up because others may or may not have had it worse and get use to 4th wave feminism is tired and useless. It is why this video doesn't have close to 1000 and true male advocates generate thousands of views.
I get that Brooks is a bit mushy and anodyne in his commentary, but Rod Dreher? I disagree with him a fair amount, but he is a solid Christian and he has no interest in propping up the Establishment-- he sees its defects quite clearly. And though a Trump voter, he also sees how Trump's bad behavior is poisoning much of what Trump seeks to do.
Dreher offers nothing useful, even his personal life is nothing to admire. The whole crew are to wedded to horrible neoliberalism or neoconservativism that glorifies the other internally and externally and is obsessed in a way with female approval. They harm the men through the policies of the lawyer half of the 20th to now and these panels and their writings are doing nothing to correct those problems except suck it up. All terrible and useless advice without the foundation for longterm change.
He is pretty terrible is his advice and fleeing to a foreign land. The panel aaron joined that includes the horrible Brookings male feminist who only cares about men in how it affects women is even worse.
Oh a panel with a male feminist who will do nothing against the left leaning gynocentric order that discriminate against the american male. Sounds like a whole lot of nothing useful and more late gen x and boomer useless advice without confronting the order that hampers and discriminates against males on a daily basis.
Sorry buddy, but while the deck is stacked against young men, it's not stacked nearly as much against them as it has been against marginalized groups in the past, who have still gone on to be successful. Quit throwing yourself a pity party and go out and put yourself in a position to effect change rather than demanding that other people do the work for you.
There it is, that dumb idiotic excuse of not as bad as others. The worst horrible excuse that is offered and was the subject of an incorrect aaron renn article. I have made myself "great" with manosphere advice and truth. Men who actually advocates for men and not the weak advice from neoliberalism loving feminists like that moron from the Brookings institute or from weaklings like dreher or brooks. These panels do nothing for males on a societal level that means anything. Your probably OK with the blatant discrimination against american males.
Could you please demonstrate that you have some kind of original thought? All you're giving out is random buzzwords and self-pity.
And sorry, but no. As far as I'm concerned, *anyone* who whines about how they can't get ahead because of "discrimination" in America in 2026 needs to grow up and take some personal responsibility, whether male, female, native-born, foreign-born, black, white, Asian, native, Hispanic, or whatever identity group you are.
Guys like you are the mirror image of the girls who complain about the "wage gap."
All you have are terrible boomer platitudes about boot straps and other nonsense. Sure anyone can get ahead if the education and employment regime, the economic policy snd the law especially in divorce is on your side because muh feminism. Revamp all that or advocate for a total revamp of this regime that favors females and actively hinders males and maybe I'll take some things said from leftwing male feminists seriously. They dont and probably never will because they are wedded to the urban feminist regime.
The manosphere actually gives real advice and advocates for males unlike anything said on these feminist university panels. Invite some of them for a real discussion and pushback on this feminist order.
At least you provide your own cheese to go with your whine.
I've heard this line from all kinds of people, from intersectional feminists to "manosphere" types about how of course everyone else can get ahead because the system is stacked in THEIR favor, and 90% of the time once you do a little asking you figure out real quick that they would only be successful in a system that wildly discriminated in their favor.
Sure, gender favored scholarships and a 60-40 attendance plus set asides in law for employment as well as being favored in family law. Which gender gets all those and get taxpayer finances welfare? Which gender is favored and given all these wonderful things? Which industries were shipped out again? You trying to equalize and say there is no active discrimination is false and a lie and saying it was worse for others earlier means nothing and is useless.
On the Korean fertility bounce:
Lyman Stone is on the record for attributing this directly to increased government incentives for marriage and children. He tends to be on that side of these debates though: that government incentives CAN make a real difference, especially if well-designed. To me, promoting marriage sounds like it is often going to be a better investment than trying to promote children directly. This probably goes double in NE Asian societies, where marital fertility is still reasonably high, and out-of-wedlock fertility is effectively zero.
The US tax/welfare-system, of course, penalizes marriage in many ways, especially for the lower/working-classes. I think one of the largest is that large subsidies exist for daycare, and they are designed such that they can only really be used by single mothers. I read somewhere that benefit might be worth upwards of $10,000/year.
Millennial, but I resonate with the Gen-Z male attitude you speak of. Many of us have abandoned the pursuit of “regular jobs” and “regular lives,” including marriage, because it has been communicated in so many ways that we’re not valued even when we want to positively contribute to society.
Even before the pandemic and Great Remote Leap Forward to online life, rejection and indifference defined much of formative experience.
Feeling distracted and lonely 8 hours a day in classrooms with dozens of rowdy students?
—You have a learning disability.
Feeling worn down from an endless cycle of thoughtful applications, interviews, and ghosting by employers paying offering $15 per hour?
—You’re being entitled.
Tired of being strung along by potential dates who just want to text/DM before going silent at the suggestion of an in-person meeting?
—Quit being toxic, Incel.
Men going their own way isn’t always about misogyny or laziness. Sometimes, it’s just people responding to the incentive structure they inhabit.
(Nods) Yeah, the frustration is real. I did online dating for *years* before I met my soon-to-be fiance, and the amount of ghosting is wild. I think 90% of the conversations I had ended with me replying to something she said and her just...not replying.
Seriously, at least do me the courtesy of cutting off the convo in the app/dating service, even if you don't want to say "Sorry, I don't think we'd work out." (95% of the time, that's what I did if I decided it would not be a good marriage.)
That having been said, that's no reason to quit--after all, it only has to work once.
Employers have taken on the same antisocial spirit as toxic dating app users: Express interest, exchange flattering messages, discuss the potential for an in-person meeting, never commit, stop responding to messages.
Just as cohabitation, “situationships” and friends with benefits are replacing marriages, full time permanent roles are being replaced by contract positions and gig work. Stability and security are being exchanged for convenience and optionality.
Technology unmoored from any consideration of social good now reigns over the public and private spheres of life.
I’m still amazed by the way Republicans fixated on preventing same sex marriage, yet made so little noise decrying the disinvestment from the real economy and its people. The religious devotion to Reagan-Thatcher “free market” ideology has done more to disrupt family formation than any blue-haired leftist could dream of.
Re: He likes to trade crypto and forex with high leverage.
Ugh. A casino mentality. Not a very adult attitude, though it's not rare. But when people cannot get ahead through normal maens they start grasping at straws.
Re: He’s not averse to MLMs
And that's even worse! Up in Michigan we used to call Amway, king of MLM pyramid schemes, "Scamway". It was banned across the border in Ontario.
Unlike other types of gambling which are guaranteed money sinks, you can make real money trading crypto. I would bet he's made money on it over the years. But that of course makes it more addictive.
Wanna bet that he's going to end up divorced and broke due to only attracting the type of woman who is down with MLM scams?
Next comes david Brooks or dreher with another round of terrible advice that does nothing against systematic discrimination against males. Suck it up because others may or may not have had it worse and get use to 4th wave feminism is tired and useless. It is why this video doesn't have close to 1000 and true male advocates generate thousands of views.
I get that Brooks is a bit mushy and anodyne in his commentary, but Rod Dreher? I disagree with him a fair amount, but he is a solid Christian and he has no interest in propping up the Establishment-- he sees its defects quite clearly. And though a Trump voter, he also sees how Trump's bad behavior is poisoning much of what Trump seeks to do.
Dreher offers nothing useful, even his personal life is nothing to admire. The whole crew are to wedded to horrible neoliberalism or neoconservativism that glorifies the other internally and externally and is obsessed in a way with female approval. They harm the men through the policies of the lawyer half of the 20th to now and these panels and their writings are doing nothing to correct those problems except suck it up. All terrible and useless advice without the foundation for longterm change.
Tell me you've never actually listened to Dreher without having actually listened to Dreher.
Also, compared to most of the manosphere, Dreher's personal life is exemplary.
He is pretty terrible is his advice and fleeing to a foreign land. The panel aaron joined that includes the horrible Brookings male feminist who only cares about men in how it affects women is even worse.
Oh a panel with a male feminist who will do nothing against the left leaning gynocentric order that discriminate against the american male. Sounds like a whole lot of nothing useful and more late gen x and boomer useless advice without confronting the order that hampers and discriminates against males on a daily basis.
Blah, blah, blah.
Sorry buddy, but while the deck is stacked against young men, it's not stacked nearly as much against them as it has been against marginalized groups in the past, who have still gone on to be successful. Quit throwing yourself a pity party and go out and put yourself in a position to effect change rather than demanding that other people do the work for you.
The deck is stacked against anyone of any race and either gender who does not have a boatload of money, but must work for a living.
There it is, that dumb idiotic excuse of not as bad as others. The worst horrible excuse that is offered and was the subject of an incorrect aaron renn article. I have made myself "great" with manosphere advice and truth. Men who actually advocates for men and not the weak advice from neoliberalism loving feminists like that moron from the Brookings institute or from weaklings like dreher or brooks. These panels do nothing for males on a societal level that means anything. Your probably OK with the blatant discrimination against american males.
Could you please demonstrate that you have some kind of original thought? All you're giving out is random buzzwords and self-pity.
And sorry, but no. As far as I'm concerned, *anyone* who whines about how they can't get ahead because of "discrimination" in America in 2026 needs to grow up and take some personal responsibility, whether male, female, native-born, foreign-born, black, white, Asian, native, Hispanic, or whatever identity group you are.
Guys like you are the mirror image of the girls who complain about the "wage gap."
All you have are terrible boomer platitudes about boot straps and other nonsense. Sure anyone can get ahead if the education and employment regime, the economic policy snd the law especially in divorce is on your side because muh feminism. Revamp all that or advocate for a total revamp of this regime that favors females and actively hinders males and maybe I'll take some things said from leftwing male feminists seriously. They dont and probably never will because they are wedded to the urban feminist regime.
The manosphere actually gives real advice and advocates for males unlike anything said on these feminist university panels. Invite some of them for a real discussion and pushback on this feminist order.
At least you provide your own cheese to go with your whine.
I've heard this line from all kinds of people, from intersectional feminists to "manosphere" types about how of course everyone else can get ahead because the system is stacked in THEIR favor, and 90% of the time once you do a little asking you figure out real quick that they would only be successful in a system that wildly discriminated in their favor.
Sure, gender favored scholarships and a 60-40 attendance plus set asides in law for employment as well as being favored in family law. Which gender gets all those and get taxpayer finances welfare? Which gender is favored and given all these wonderful things? Which industries were shipped out again? You trying to equalize and say there is no active discrimination is false and a lie and saying it was worse for others earlier means nothing and is useless.