Imaginary Imposter Syndrome Part II

BBC-podkast on suunnittu, että joku on edes jatku. Arvoisat oppilaat. Lukuvuosi on taputeeltu ja haluan erityisesti onditella sinua, joka nostit arvo sanoja, sijuu ritarvittavan määrän. Tai pääsit sittenkin matikasta läpi. Tai ehkä et, mutta tärkeintä onneet täytit. Onnea kaikille ja ihanakin sää. Heille, jotka ansaitsevat kultaa. Kulta Katriina. Eläköön Suomalainen kahvi kulttuuri. Onneet kulttuuri ja kulttuuri, että joku on edes jatku. Onneet kulttuuri, että joku on edes jatku. Mutta joku on edes jatku. 1945-2000, että joku on edes jatku. Ortaa, ja joku on edes jatku. I think we need to renew the alliance between Europe and America, renew the alliance between moderate left and moderate right, but most importantly, we need to renew the greatest alliance in history, and that is the alliance between men and women. And I think a mix of feminine and masculine energy is a wonderful combination that has literally built the world that we know. I wonder whether actually part of all of this is the daintiness about language and the walking on egg shells nests about language, which has been very much something from the progressive left. I suppose in the last 10 to 15 years in particular. So in a sense, it's not just about men and women. This goes to a wider argument about the ability of people to have these conversations actually in the first place. A great point, Justin. If you were to reverse engineer that single point of failure, or a boy comes off the tracks and becomes an unproductive male, it's when he's loses a male role model through death disease or man and men. The moment I was raised by a single immigrant mother lived in the secretary of my life. But the reality is when my father left us at that moment, I became more likely as a boy to be incarcerated and graduated from college. What's interesting is that girls in single parent households have similar outcomes, same rates of college attendance, same rates of self-harm. So despite being physically stronger, what the data shows is that boys are actually emotionally and intellectually much weaker than girls. Much less resilient. But even saying that boys need men in their lives was triggering five years ago. What women can't raise men? Sure they can. Again, see above raised by a single mother. But the reality is boys need men in their lives. We couldn't even have an honest conversation, even acknowledging a different in the 95% of us who assign as binary. And by the way, that doesn't mean people in the middle don't deserve the exact same opportunities. It doesn't mean that any way women should be prohibited or not have the same opportunities that men have. What I'm saying is 95% of us are born with certain attributes that are easier for us to lean into than the other gender. Let's celebrate both those things and acknowledge that our society right now seems to be not helping young men. The young men are flailing. And that is going to have all sorts of second order impacts on the well-being of our society. Are you getting somewhere? Do you think? I'll turn to Trump in a second. But with the left of you, do you feel that the argument is now playing out on your side or not? The conversation has become a lot more productive in the last five years. Governor California, Governor Newsom has sponsored programs for young men. Governor Moore of Maryland said that in his state of the state address this year that the focus of his administration was going to be on lifting up young men and boys. He could not have said that five years ago. That's interesting. And both of them, potential, actually, both of them actually present a kind of it in 28 on bill, or going for the nomination. No question of both of those. That's interesting. So it's going to be there in the debates in the primaries. This is something people are feeling in their homes. You know, you get in a room of parents and you start talking about the problems between young men and young women and they just start nodding their heads. There's just such a stark difference. It's even biological. Do you have kids, Justin? Yeah, do. Yeah. If you have 15-year-olds over, this is my son had 15-year-olds his class over. The boys are nice, but they're dopes. They can't look in the eye. Some of the girls that come over at 15 could be the junior senators from Pennsylvania. They could be in parliament. Girls are just maturing faster and a world that values. Now I think there's some bias K through 12. What do we ask kids to do? Be quiet, sit still, ask questions. Look at the gross motor skills of a boy or better, but the oral skills and the dexterity of a girl is better. Push a pencil around, ask questions, articulate themselves, sit still. 70-80% of our primary school administrators and teachers are female. So basically education has been feminized. We've built in some biases, we're not even cognizant of accidentally, that I think really and not recognizing their biologically behind, not recognizing the problem of single parent homes, which conservatives have been talking about for a while, but through a different lens. There's just no arguing with the statistics here, but to your point, the conversation has become much more productive. And we also recognize finally, I think, that this is not a zero sum problem. Game marriage didn't hurt, had an normative marriage. Civil rights didn't hurt white people, helping men and recognizing their problems will not hurt women. And that argument is going to be felt right across the aisle in the States, isn't it? Because if you put Trump to an extent to one side and he is going to be gone at some stage and there is going to be a discussion about where the right goes. And there was obviously a lot of discussion on the right about masculinity. They're very interested in it. You think of the online right. You think of someone like Bronze Age pervert, who a lot of America's listeners will not have come across, but as you will know, there's a very, very big presence in the online kind of right, manosphere/political place. And to what extent, I suppose, have they co-opted all of the things that you've just been saying in a way that it's going to be quite difficult, actually, to pull people back, to pull young men particularly back? The manosphere starts off fine, be fit, be action oriented, be economically viable. But then it comes off the tracks and it becomes about dominating women. It becomes about a propensity towards violence, demonizing immigrants. It just takes young men to the absolute worst place. And it's been such an unproductive part of helping young men because when people hear me advocating for men, they have a very understandable radar that goes up and says, "Here's another guy who's going to start blaming women." While advocating for men what he's really doing is talking about dominating women and sending them back. And I understand that gag reflex into a certain extent, as a white male of my age, I may not be the right spokesperson for this because people see me and I'm sort of wrong before I open my mouth. People immediately gag and go, "You out yourself as a misogynist and anti-immigrant and as a racist when you start advocating for men because the people who are advocating for men for several years have a tendency to be people who have a crypto university or think that all you need to do is drive a Lambo and not let your girl go out because she should be supporting your life." So I think there needs to be a more aspirational vision of masculinity and I think we just need better role models that say, "Okay, being masculine is wonderful but it's about service. It's about surplus value. It's about celebrating the progress of women. It's about engaging at home. It's about being a great dad, a great partner and you could also be strong and you could also be aggressive but you are in the service of others." There's no such thing as toxic masculinity. There's violence. There's abuse of power. The masculinity, that's like, "I don't believe there's toxic femininity. I think femininity is a wonderful thing." And I think we need to move to some sort of, we need better spokesperson people and better role models that help convince the nation in the world that masculinity is an aspirational wonderful thing that helps move the world forward. Just saying there's no such thing as toxic masculinity. I think really would have got you cancelled and maybe borderline still would, certainly in universities in the States. I don't know whether you do commencement speeches still or whether you're allowed to Scott but I mean that is a deeply controversial view among a certain and very powerful group of people on the progressive left, isn't it? And I just wonder whether they're not going to let that go without a fight. I don't want to sound myself a sounding virtuous but it's not easy for me to be cancelled. I can be dragged and chained and it happens a lot because sometimes quite frankly I get it wrong sometimes and I'm prone to say, "I'm not immune to saying stupid things." But one of my role models is Sam Harris and he says, "If you have economic security and people who love you unconditionally and I'm both those saying you have an obligation to speak out." Scott, can I widen the conversation just before we finish to the context for all of this, which is where the US goes after Donald Trump. And I was listening to you talking the other day to David Brooks of the New York Times, actually went right to the Atlantic now, doesn't he? So someone who's thought a lot, he's on the right, on the kind of moderate right, who's thought a lot about where America goes ethically now. And it was a fascinating conversation because he's really quite optimistic, isn't he? Did he convince you? I struggle with anger and depression and so I'm a glass half empty kind of guy. So I consistently have to ask myself, "What could go right?" But I do like to think that America is so dissatisfied with the way things are headed that they're going to make a change. Now my fears we swing too far to the left and I think extremism on the left can be just as dangerous as extremism on the right. But if you look at the polls, it looks like America is ready for a fairly substantial change which makes me hopeful. Yeah, David Brooks was suggesting that, I mean, he was using the example of the '50s and the '60s and the '50s suddenly become the '60s. The '50s all uptight and all the rest of it in crew cuts and then suddenly the '60s and nobody sees it coming and he was making the point to you, wasn't he? That we could have the same thing. So after Trump, we could be something completely different and it could happen very suddenly. But that point that you make is such an important one, isn't it? Because when you look at some on the left, I was just looking at the Luigi Mangio, the only trial which has been getting going in New York, hasn't it? And some of the hate-filled stuff that comes from the left just as much as it has come from the right, you do wonder about whether or not there is something in the post-Trump politics that has really changed in a kind of poisonous way that is not just going to be able to be brushed off or cast aside. Typically, what happens when people are frustrated and angry? It's not that they attach to a political ideology, they just want change. So no one was going to vote for the person they saw as the incumbent vice president Harris. And I don't think I think the same thing, one of the wonderful things about America is typically speaking, whoever's the next president is much different than the one now. It's like when I see someone who's pregnant with their second child. I say, all I can tell you is it's going to be nothing like the first. And if you look at American elections, it's the same way. Usually we go for something different in our next election. I just hope it's not. If you look at Europe, the communists on the far left were fighting for power and the fat versus the fascist on the far right. Now the far right won. But I think this type of dangerous, plural non-democratic societies, I think it can just as easily come from the far left as the far right. And my fear is that my biggest fear is that Trump or Vance continues this mantle of corruption and a lack of empathy and the coarsening of our discourse. But I also think there's a real threat that we move too far to the left. We're starting in the US to demonize success. And one of the reasons we've always had so many people aspire. Both my parents are from the UK. And the reason they got on a steamship and crawled across the Atlantic with 300 pounds to their name was they wanted to go somewhere where they thought they could be successful. And I think that so many things in America right now, in terms of an anti-immigrant policy, corruption, lack of rule of law, but also on the far left, a demonization of success. I think all of these things add up to what I would call superpowers suicide. So I just hope we can move back to an environment where we have moderates with common-sense solutions that are pragmatists. And I also hope that we end up with a president that's not on our face every day that gives everyone 30 or 60 minutes back a day where they're just not thinking about the president, so to speak. That then goes to the social media. I've mentioned social media with so much part of the conversation now and it's for another day for us and you talk a lot about it. And plainly, there are good things about social media, but plainly, there are bad and we're all aware of that one's not really a controversial issue. Is it except to say that you have to wonder whether the kind of America that you want to see and that David Brooks was was outlining to you as well and exist where we will are interacting with each other politically and in other ways as well with algorithms designed to make the money. 1945 to 1995 we thought the ultimate hook for attention was sex. By this watch you'll be hot, drink this beer, you'll have a six pack and have more random sexual encounters and then the algorithms from Google found there's something even better than sex and that's rage. And when you put something out, Justin, you immediately go back to look at the comments and if someone someone says something really off color or mean, it creates comments, which is another Nissan ad and another more shareholder value. So unfortunately, we have tied the economic well-being. I would argue of our economy to creating and elevating incendiary content that divides us. So Americans no longer see Putin or she or income inequality as the enemy. They see their neighbor with a different political sign as the enemy. So social media creates a lot of positives, a lot of economic good. These companies create a lot of positives, but they also have a lot of externalities and there's no regulatory body. Fossil fuels are net positive, but we have emission standards, pesticides are net positive, but we have a food and drug administration. I would argue big text in that positive, but there's absolutely no regulation. So if you want to say that mRNA vaccines alter your DNA, you can say it and that content gets elevated beyond its organic reach because it upsets people. So we're creating an environment where we're more anxious, upset, don't like each other and feel that our enemy is our neighbor. It's literally tearing at the fabric of the West and also it attacks the self-esteem of young girls. It convinces young men to stay in their homes. Men ages 20 to 30 are spending less time outdoors in prison inmates. So in the reason I initially got involved in this was I see myself in these young men. I had a lack of economic and romantic opportunities when I was this age and if I had a false belief or a myth that I could have friendships on discord and Reddit and make money on crypto trading crypto or stocks on Robinhood or Coinbase and that I didn't need to get out and figure out a way to meet women because I have life like porn 24 by seven. I could have easily been one of these men that is flailing. So I don't think men of our generation just realize what these young men are up against when the deepest pocketed companies with godlike technology are every day trying to sequester them for the most valuable thing in our lives and that is relationships. People are now turning online for advice, turning online to think they can make money. They're not going into work. They're not going into school. They're not taking chances to meet friends. They're not approaching 42% of men in America 18 to 24 have never asked a woman out in person. Think about that. There's this notion that if you approach a woman you might get me to some of that is true but mostly it's a cop out for young men to basically sequester to their basements and have what they think is going to be a friction-free life which renders them alone, obese and anxious by the time they're 30 without the skills to have a rewarding life. I don't thought that. I don't want it to be a trite one but you set out a massive kind of civilizational level set of hurdles that have to be crossed. Are you still optimistic about the US? Should we be? I am because if you look at history we're an artistic species and we tend to think that the time we're in is either the best or the darkest. I think it's very easy to fall into the notion that this is the darkest moment in American history and that might be true of the recent past but at 1.1 percent of the population who controlled the United States were slave owners. Not that long ago we were putting people in concentration camps because they were born in Japan even when their sons were serving in the European theater. We were we had governors democratically elected governor standing in front of schools and not letting in six-year-old black girls. We have faced really dark times and every time our nation has come back stronger, recognizing that we need to put in place standards, norms and laws such that we can be a stronger democracy. So that's the optimist view. That's the one I'm holding too. I know you got a big listenership. What I would say to the UK and Europe is don't give up on us. I think the alliance between America and the US is probably the strongest alliance or economic and geopolitical alliance. And I think there's a lot of Americans that not only miss Europeans. I think there's a lot of Europeans that miss the old America and I think there's a lot of us committed to making America America again. It's not Galeroy. It's such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you so much for sparing us the time. Thanks. Thank you, Dustin. Right. As promised, Mariana joins me now and we're going to have a little discussion. I suppose about some of the themes that Scott Galeroy goes on about Mariana but more widely as well. It's such an important topic, isn't it? And it's a topic from your world to men, the manosphere. Yeah, exactly. And I think that the conversation that you had touched on so many of the issues, particularly around the way that the world I investigate social media could be impacting men, male voters in particular and especially in the US. But I think that I thought was really interesting. The discussion you were having about outrage. The problem with the manosphere is that it centers around anger and frustration often and a feeling of injustice rather than necessarily solutions and positives and how do we actually improve the situation often, for example, pointing to women as part of the problem rather than actually dealing with voters, particularly younger men who feel like they are being underestimated or for whom the kind of systems no longer support or accommodating doesn't mean as to be at the expense of women as well. Well, that's the point, isn't it? And it's not just underestimated, to be honest. I think the feeling is that a lot of young men in the US feel disparaged, disliked, even hated by women. And they now, they've got into this trap of sending that hatred back in the other direction. That's the thing that got Scott involved. And we should say Scott Galaway, I mean, he's a kind of, for me, his like interview Taylor Swift would be Sarah because I listened to a lot of Scott Galaway. I mean, certainly don't agree with everything he says or endorse everything he says on a wide range of topics. And he's someone who is a very powerful figure. I think it's fair to say in the way that figures now can be powerful who aren't part of the political setup in the US But have these big platforms where they can really have an influence and he is a supporter of the Democrats He wants Democrats to do well. He doesn't think much of Donald Trump, but he has got this Knowledge as well of the manosphere that you're talking about when I was doing The documentary I did for BBC two inside the Rage of Machines speaking to different insiders from the companies I also spoke to people impacted by social media and one was one was a young man who had had this very thing happened to him Basically he was having a bit of a rubbish time and he felt like he was struggling to make friends He was kind of struggling romantically. He wasn't loving school and once he started getting pushed this sort of content on his Feed it was it was so alluring and appealing and it made him feel powerful and and the kind of have some agency in his life But actually ultimately he realized that it was it was making him unhappy and you can imagine that the Democrats looking Head to the next election would think there is a place in the market for the kind of not cringy like be a good man That kind of thing but for the like actually I don't want to be in the manosphere Like I don't want to be part of this kind of group But I also want to feel like you know my voice is heard and then it counts I want to feel respected and understood and I want to feel kind of you know I want everyone to feel equal like I think there's I remember a speaking about this before when it came to Tim Walls Who was running as for Vice President alongside Kamala Harris and that It felt like they really missed a trick that they could have used him who was very active in like school football and You know college football and that kind of thing they could have used him to to actually speak to men who are just kind of like quite reasonable and normal Which is which is the majority of people really like we're talking about the outrage algorithmic people But most people you'd hope you know want the same things ultimately it didn't work with him though Did it there was something? No, no, they didn't even use him in that way. They didn't they used him in a kind of like pro-aggressive Ideas yeah, and it didn't work yeah, I Because he tried to straddle a load of things and this I think goes to that's a really interesting that you bring that out because I think one of the things That that I think is true is yes You don't want to have some sort of ludicrously kind of high-falutin conversation about what it means to be a man or what it means to be a woman But actually what it means to be a citizen is something that Americans Often feel they don't properly think about now and one of the things that it would mean to be a citizen in a better functioning America Is the ability to make moral judgments and about each other and stand by them but not fall out I actually think there's a huge appetite for sort of positive constructive discourse It just doesn't feel like people often have the four forums or forer in which they can do that anymore And so you know they they are turning to social media because that has just become sort of part and parcel particularly younger people of their lives And actually there's just not a place for sort of like nuanced Interesting discussion on these kinds of issues and the problem is there's a lot of the content that they consume Let's think about podcast for example or social media influencers succeeds by exploiting Outrage and I think and it's a really important thing that like and I know this from speaking to insiders at the social media companies social media platforms are ultimately built obviously you know to Maximize engagement and then order to do that the in and out groups thing is really important Which is like us and then it's very very effective at kind of driving engagement and gender is one of the perfect fault lines of which Constructs that yeah, weirdly, so we have this conversation on the day or hours after the DNC Democratic National Committee is forced into publishing Their um autopsy basically of the 2024 campaign the one that come the Harris Fought and Lost Which had been long kept secret. I mean they generally didn't intend to publish it Um, they've kind of been forced into publishing bits of it and it goes really to this subject actually because it's very much reintroduces us to the idea of how much can the Democrats then say for instance they want to accept what Scott Galaway says and they want to attract men back into the fold to the extent that they've been lost How much is the party in the future going to be in the business of doing that and how much in the party in the is in the business of just appealing to the core groups of people Which is particularly young and unmarried well-educated women So the DNC have had this autopsy they published I mean it's an absolute mess the executive summary Doesn't have anything in it and no et cetera, but I mean one of the core bits of it seems to be We need to appeal to everyone everywhere So in the midterms, but more importantly for the presidential election do the parties Managed to find a way of getting into what we used to call the center ground if it still exists at all Or actually because of the way that people communicate Never mind. I agree with you those people are there But if if they if you can't do your political communication in a way that reaches them Then the really important thing is to get out the people you can depend on To vote for you and of course in Donald Trump's case that meant people many of whom had never voted before And I do think that the challenge For the idea that everything kind of reverts to the mean In 2028 is that actually that's the whole setup has changed so profoundly yeah Be in change so profoundly that maybe that's not so easy Yeah, and that's where you know having a system that is two parties in that way It feels quite incompatible with a world where people are increasingly sort of like siloed In certainly more than two groups and so The way that parties kind of seek to appeal to a broader audience just feels much more much more difficult I guess than it used to be although maybe ultimately as we've chatted about it actually just boils down to who do you think's going to make you feel sort of wealthier and happy after and And actually all of these other issues become besides the point. Yeah. Yeah. I mean maybe you know It's inflation that's going to kill Donald Trump In the midterms. Not anything around. Yeah. Yeah exactly and it wasn't only inflation really that killed Joe Biden although he's his Ancientness if that's a word was also probably part of that but yeah, no, I think you're it's it's a really important point That actually for most people now and this stuff really makes any sense to accept that I just to go back to what um scog all the way was saying It there is a sort of haunting oddness about men and women voting very differently um and and it and it it just feels somehow Oh, doesn't it in a in a modern Yeah, that you have that sex difference in voting and it feels I don't know it just feels unstable somehow and unpleasant I really don't think we can talk about it enough the algorithm the impact of the algorithms because as well The social media companies always try to argue that the algorithms are actually Not gendered so they tried to say oh it's not about gender. We don't push people stuff on the basis of gender But yet loads of the insiders have told me from the companies all of the things that indicate you know How they build a profile of a user to push them stuff ultimately makes it very clear usually what someone's gender will be And I think that does account for quite a lot of what we're seeing in terms of the real difference in politics Kind of all around the world really between between women and men Okay, the algorithms will never push us apart Yeah, actually I that's quite remarkable sometimes nice to talk to you that's it for now. Bye. Bye. Thank you for answering our call and continuing to send your messages to us We do read every single one we love to hear your thoughts your feedback and questions as well So please do keep them coming you can send us an email. It's [email protected] The WhatsApp is 44330 1239480 and you can get involved in the americast discord server The link to that is in the description and don't forget to subscribe that way you will never miss an episode until next time bye Got in my cell to hexa planil to ergonomize the tyo to all the yotka to kevat rule a lot and Pisyphek mukana olipa tyo päiväsi millainen tahansa Leuda juuri sinon tarpeisiisi sopiva tyo to alli osoitteesta hexa plan piste fi Exa plan tyo to isi pelastaja Exa exa exa plan Vakiaa varma ja tummaa la kretsia Maitos u klaasinen kärityo Maista uusi tupla double layer razz very liquid Fake galonal again.