One of the more interesting thoughts I came across when reading about Europe in the 20th century was that there are some countries that seem to be better off if they are poorer. The example given was Germany, with its tremendous post-war economic performance, rising like phoenix from the ashes. Yet, after life had gotten too comfortable, the country turned towards unlimited immigration, gender madness, and renewable energy. All of these projects have been unmitigated disasters.
At the individual level, we can probably make the same observation. Of course, there is the infamous “rat utopia” experiment by John Calhoun, which shows that overcrowding in combination with an abundance of resources leads to a population decline, and on the way, rats adopt rather unhealthy behaviors, such as turning gay or spending an excessive amount of time on grooming. There is arguably perceived overpopulation in cities but I do not think that there is a meaningful difference, on an individual level, of living in a city of five million or ten million, assuming a similar density as you simply perceive faceless crowds wherever you go.
With city dwelling came a reduction of social contacts. In a small village you probably know at least a few of your neighbors. In contrast, if you live in an apartment building in a big city, it is quite possible that you do not speak to your neighbors at all. As all the burdens of daily life outside of work are more or less taken care of, people then need something else to fill their time. It would be easy to now speak about media consumption. Boomers love their TV while later generations get their entertainment via browsing the Internet, streaming movies and TV shows, or playing video games. This is not necessarily a new phenomenon. Before TV, there was radio, and before that there were newspapers. People also liked to play cards or even gamble. There were always popular ways to pass one’s time. Focusing on this particular aspect is probably a red herring.
In recent decades, there has been an increasing focus on improving one’s appearance. Of course, even in antiquity women used makeup. However, men did not exercise with the goal of improving their physique. Physical exertion and its results were its own reward, and the bodies of men changed accordingly. There were sports but there was also physical labor, obviously. You could look at somebody and tell how they used their body. This connection between appearance and use of one’s body has only broken down very recently. The main reason is that we spend more and more time just warming a chair while physical work is delegated to machines. This is even true for many trades. I sometimes have workers at home, but they normally do not break a sweat as their heaps of electric tools do all the heavy lifting.
Not having to exert strength to survive, modern man gravitated towards lifting weights. When you think about it, bodybuilding is an utterly frivolous activity. I do not just refer to professional bodybuilders and their use of steroids. Even the average guy who lifts weights semi-regularly to look a bit better is engaging in a frivolous activity as vanity is his main motivation. If we were talking about someone who goes through an exercise regimen in order to maintain or improve their health, the situation would be different. Based on every gym I ever went to, though, the vast majority of guys do not go there to lower their resting heart rate and stave off the effects of aging.
Obviously, there is a competition for reproductive resources. Men want to look better in order to do better with the opposite sex, and it is the same with women. However, this entire dynamic just reveals that life must have gotten far too easy. There is obviously value in physical exertion. Yet, only in somewhat recent times did the focus shift on attempting to sculpt a new body for yourself. I am thinking of my grandfather, yet again, who was physically active until the very end. Even in his 80s he chopped wood for hours. With the right technique, it is apparently more of an endurance than a strength exercise. Nonetheless, I cannot see the average guy in his 80s being able to do that. If you chop wood, the result is a stack of fire wood. There is an exercise that is modeled after a misguided understanding of chopping wood: I read that some guys hit truck tires with a sledge hammer. What is the productive outcome of that? Of course you exerted yourself but there is no obvious result. There is no stack of firewood in the end.
Today, it seems men are much more concerned about swinging a sledgehammer against a truck tire than they are about chopping wood. I should also point a finger at myself here as I have built a basic gym for myself in my basement. In the end, though, I cannot help but wonder if guys who lift weights, at whatever level, try to compensate for monotony in the rest of their life. I spend most of my day sitting on a desk, in the comfort of a heated house or office. Obviously, this is much more comfortable than life was in the olden days when you may even have had to grow your own food. Now we are all ultra-specialized, yet our lives are probably a lot poorer as a result. No longer are we looking for a spouse in order to have someone to look after the house and have children with. Instead, the primary objectives seem to be of an aesthetic nature. This is a luxury we could not engage in in the past.
Arguably, the fact that life has gotten too easy is the primary reason why we have lost track of what really matters. Women prolong childbirth until their 30s because they want a “career” while more and more guys drop out of the workforce because they do not want to bother with all the bullshit that is being thrown their way anymore. Yet, even guys remaining in the workforce have lost sight of what really matters. Heck, I even tell guys that they should not settle down too soon, and for very good reasons. This is an adaptation to life in modernity. In the past, life may have been less comfortable. In many other regards, however, it was probably a lot easier. You were simply too busy to spend time in the gym and people were also acutely aware that they needed to find a partner sooner rather than later, having been fully aware that there is not an abundance of time. In the past, people probably were a lot more focused, simply because they had to.
This was more or less the point I tried to make to Alek a while ago when I spoke about how guys from the distant past wouldn’t have spared a second thought on skincare because they were too busy with “manly endeavors”. Anyway, I see his side as well, because the lines between “concern for one’s health” and “vanity” are very blurred when it comes to both skincare and lifting weights.
There was an argument in the past here between Alek and some other regular here who was looking down on skincare as an unhealthy insecurity.
I side with Alek however. There is a gigantic difference between investing like maybe 5 mins per day (maybe even less. It may not even have to be an everyday thing) that can significantly extend your youthful looks (your relevancy in the dating scene) and the fitness minmaxers who are obsessively trying to gain that final 1-2% of their max genetic gains at the expense of everything else in their lives.
The first one has massive ROI. Just 5 mins of your time per day (or less) for an extra decade of relevancy in your dating life? ESPECIALLY if you’re a late bloomer? How can you argue against the benefits?
Gaining that final 2-3 lbs of muscle though when you’ve gotten almost all the rest of your possible natural gainz has MUCH less ROI in terms of impact to the quality of your life, if there will even be any. It might even be a negative hit to your QoL in fact.
When the weights are heavy enough, you will be much more prone to injury. The strongest and most hardcore fitness guy (He’s not just fucking strong, he’s got the cardiovascular conditioning that would probably put MANY sports athletes to shame) I know of did not to get to where he is by taking care of his body. He’s collected a whole host of permanent injuries on the way there.
If you want to argue about “unhealthy insecurities/fixations”, I think that guy (even though I respect that Goggins-like toughness, lol) will more easily fit the definition than someone that spends a few minutes of his day putting on lotion to stay good looking for a decade+ longer.
>>Heck, I even tell guys that they should not settle down too soon, and for very good reasons.<<
What kind of reasons?
I think the vast majority of us here, when we were young, had absolutely no idea of the “lay of the land”. When I first went into college, I’ve had some unattractive women throw themselves (one even had the nerve to try to play hard to get games after for flirting back, lol) at me. I had nearly zero confidence in my attractiveness back then, but, mainly thanks to having other outlets for my sexual needs (hurray porn!), I wasn’t desperate and didn’t get involved with them, and I’m thankful to this day for that.
On the way, more attractive women came (This was back when I still believed in PUA), one of them in particular was a crazy one. I tolerated her BS though, believing that this woman must be an “outlier” and of a looks caliber (she wasn’t my exact time, but most dudes would probably rate her between 7-8. I was chasing experience and validation here.) I can’t get under normal circumstances.
Boy, would I be shocked even further to later discover that women of her caliber (with the perk of actually being my type) or even higher show interest in me. I am thankful again that circumstances prevented me from making the mistake of getting trapped by that previous woman.
In comparison, I look at some of the guys I used to know and got tied down. My cousin is in a serious relationship with a single mom of two. Now he has to struggle and support them. Last I’ve heard, he’s been trying to ask for money from my well-off uncle. No one wanted to let him reach him though, because he’s caused his own problems.
Frankly, my cousin hasn’t had the best history with women. I think his first girlfriend when we were barely teens was fat, ugly, AND a personality to match. He couldn’t inspire a single shred of jealousy in me even back then.
Another case…a former enemy of mine back in high school ended up marrying and having kids with one of those women I flirted with in college. I’ll admit she was certainly not among the worse ones, but she didn’t really do it for me and I wanted no responsibility for taking that flirtation further. I have no idea if he did it out of a petty attempt to one-up me or something (I had not talked to him ever since he got expelled from high school for having an affair with one of our fat teachers) but if it was, it definitely did the opposite. Him scooping her up relieved me of the pressure of any follow up with her. From my POV, they are quite close to being looksmatch. Not the worst result in the world I suppose, but I wouldn’t trade places with him in a million years. (Just to add though…She fattened up.)
Just for reference, he is much shorter and smaller in comparison to me. Now that I mention this, I remember him trying to attack me with a chair back in high school and I actually froze him in place because I had a chair myself too and almost hit him in the chin with it when he tried to charge at me. In hindsight, he probably wasn’t really going to attack me, he just wanted to try to scare/intimidate me. Ah…good times. (not🙄) I wonder if Fatherhood has changed him for the better…
It is unexpected that this guy got expelled for having sex with a teacher. Shouldn’t the teacher get kicked out instead? Imagine a role reversal where a male teacher had sex with a female student, and the latter getting expelled. That would be unthinkable.
Oh, in my cousin’s case, I forgot to add…There is a non-zero chance she may have been a stripper. at the very least, she’s definitely worked/hanged out in…questionable circles. He scooped her up when she was a bartender apparently.
Is laying (well, he didn’t “lay” her though. He committed to her, so no bragging rights here if there is..) a stripper worth bragging rights in your view, Aaron? Mystery back in the day I think was big on strippers for whatever reason.
No, there are no bragging rights associated with dating a stripper. You may as well show up with a prostitute at a social event and tell others about it. People would question your sanity for getting involved with such a woman. If it is just for a one-night stand, it does not matter that much. Then you are dealing with just another woman. It would still be better if guys kept this to themselves because the obvious conclusion is that they had sex with that stripper because they paid for it.
The main reason is that if you settle down early, you can mess up your life quite a bit. A relationship, in particular once children are in the picture, can lead to you not being able to get anywhere close to the limits of your career potential. Also, if you work hard in your 20s, you will be in a much better situation to find a wife as you will bring a lot more to the table. In contrast, some random chick throwing herself at you in your late teens is probably not the best you can get. Interestingly, modern women pursue this strategy as well, but they do not realize that their sexual market value declines rapidly in their 20s.
“Imagine a role reversal where a male teacher had sex with a female student, and the latter getting expelled. That would be unthinkable.”
I didn’t care or even took note of it at the time because I was just happy to be rid of him, but you’re definitely right. I think my other classmates felt an injustice had been done that the teacher essentially suffered no real consequences while he got kicked out. I think the closest thing to justice being done is when my classmates found an opportunity to embarrass her during a public event.
I hold no love for this teacher either, btw. At some point after the guy got expelled, she…almost (she stopped short. I don’t know why. Did it come to her not to push her luck after the last stint? I’m just thankful she didn’t complete it.) forced a kiss on me…DURING CLASS. (While a few of my classmates expressed attraction for her fat ass, I was not.) Again, like you pointed out, imagine if the genders were reversed here.
Maou:
What country are you in, if you don’t mind sharing?
I’m guessing not in the U.S.A.? They are very militant about such things – the teacher would be the one ending up in prison, not the kid getting expelled. Seems like there’s a female teacher getting locked up for that kinda stuff every few months over there.
Philippines. And yes, if you have read my previous rants about the educational/schooling system where I am on certain parts of this blog, the shit students (and even employees in the workplace, but that’s a different subject..) are expected up with in this country is unbelievable.
I’ve also said this before, but while one can consider the Philippines a good place to retire, I would say its absolutely not a good place to raise kids in. Unless you want them raised in a school system that’s even worse than what’s in the US and goes even further with molding students to grow up into submissive obedient sheep.
I’ve spoken of starting out as an absolute goody two shoes as a kid. And I probably WOULD have turned out that way had my trust not been broken by authority figures (i.e. teachers being absolutely useless for stopping the bullies) and discovered that I had to solve the problem myself, by judiciously breaking the rules myself in the process. and that extended even to my college years to get around incompetent teachers and higher ups.
You want people to stay bluepilled? you have to at least keep them reasonably happy. Even the agents in the Matrix realized this. They’re certainly smarter than our elites.