Decoding the Gurus - Scott Galloway, Part 2: Peak Masculinity

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

We return for Part 2 of our Scott Galloway deep dive, where the vibes remain strong, the confidence unwavering, and the relationship with empirical evidence increasingly… decorative.Returning to our Modern Wisdom safari, we continue navigating the forbidden terrain of men, masculinity, and male suffering: a topic so dangerous that it requires constant ritual disclaimers, whispered caveats, and the occasional nervous glance around the bar to make sure we can take out the other men if necessary.We cover Scott's outline of his masculine Third Way: rejecting both the Right’s “Bring Back the Fifties” masculinity and the Left’s “Men Are the Problem” framework, in favour of a solution that might be described as Stern Dad Who’s Also Nice About It. Prepare to thrill at proposals of mandatory national service, kindness as a masculine superpower, and the radical idea that young people might benefit from not being economically crushed.Things get spicier when we’re told what women really want and learn about the adaptive skill check of the female orgasm. Chris Williamson unveils a prepared essay on What Men Want which proves to be a moving piece of therapeutic slam poetry that somehow manages to combine manosphere grievance mongering with woke therapy talk. We learn how what men really just want to be told is “you are enough" and should be kind for kindness sake, but also should optimise their friend group such that they can properly signal their high mate quality and train hard enough to take out all other males in the bar.Finally, we hit peak Decoding Mode as Scott’s statistics begin to escalate: boys are ten times more likely to kill themselves, father absence turns sons into inmates, daughters into promiscuous approval-seekers, and nearly every claim is delivered with total confidence and minimal concern for effect sizes, confounds, or whether the study actually exists. Decorative scholarship is in full bloom.We do our best as two hyper-masculine men to separate reasonable concerns about boys, mentorship, and social policy from hyperbolic factoids, pop-psych inflation, and the familiar habit of smuggling moral arguments in under the banner of “what the science says.”Bring your hunting knife and stoic daily diary. Take your testosterone injection. And get ready for some man talk!LinksModern Wisdom: The War On Men Isn’t Helping Anyone - Scott GallowayThe Diary of a CEO: Scott Galloway: We’re Raising The Most Unhappy Generation In History! Hard Work Doesn't Build WealthAcademic papers/Sources ReferencedCulpin, I., Heuvelman, H., Rai, D., Pearson, R. M., Joinson, C., Heron, J., … Kwong, A. S. F. (2022). Father absence and trajectories of offspring mental health across adolescence and young adulthood: Findings from a UK-birth cohort. Journal of Affective Disorders, 314, 150–159.Dekker, M. C., Ferdinand, R. F., van Lang, N. D. J., Bongers, I. L., van der Ende, J., & Verhulst, F. C. (2007). Developmental trajectories of depressive symptoms from early childhood to late adolescence: Gender differences and adult outcome. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 48(7), 657–666.Angelakis, I., Austin, J. L., & Gooding, P. (2020). Association of childhood maltreatment with suicide behaviors among young people: a systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA network open, 3(8), e2012563-e2012563.Zhang, L., Wang, P., Liu, L., Wu, X., & Wang, W. (2026). Different roles of child abuse and neglect on emerging adult's nonsuicidal self-injury and suicidal ideation: sex difference through emotion regulation. Current...

Hello, welcome back. It's a part two. It's a part two. I don't think I've ever introduced a part two episode before, so we're not going to do the normal spiel. We're continuing on. We're going to be figuring out, Chris, whether or not, who's this guy? What's his name? Scott Galloway. Is he a guru? We're halfway there. I know we've talked about him. Yeah. Chris Williamson, we've talked about him too. It's all coming back to me. But to be honest, it's mostly a blur. Where do we get to? Don't worry, Matt. I'll be, I'll be leading you back in. The things will be clear. But you would never tell that you've never done a part two intro before. It was just so seamless. It was perfect. That's because I'm a proficient of, Chris. Yeah. So where we left off was Scott Galloway was being interviewed by Chris Williamson of modern wisdom. And we covered a lot of ground. We'd we talked mostly about men and men's issues. That's right. That's right. Chris William said, was a little bit upset in particular that the headlines, you have to make disclaimers, you always have to bring up women

when you're talking about men. Yeah. We don't want to talk about women. We don't want to talk about women. We don't talk about just men. No women. Just men. This is a men in Kiev.

And we started to get into some of the more meaty aspects of the discussion. And feedback from part one, people commented that, you know, they found Chris Williams in a little bit more annoying. and Scott, which, you know, that's true. That's true in this material. That's understandable. I can see that. It is.

I can see that. But they were waiting for Scott's takes to appear. So you're going to hear more of them and you'll be the judge, right? So now I finished off last time by saying, okay, we're going to hear Scott Galloway. You know, we were talking a little bit about the political stuff that had come in where Scott was mainly trying to pivot things towards stuff around taxes and so on. We'd heard about the Democrats wanting den neuter everyone. Oh, yeah.

And so on. Yes, you remember that. That's concerning, really, isn't it? Yes. And then I was highlighting that Scott Galloway is a, you know, generally a left-wing person. So even though he's active in this man-in-sphere territory now, he's not really on board with the typical monosphere stuff.

So you hear that come through in some of the things. And yeah, you'll hear a little bit of the duality of Stratt in this next step. So yeah, this is a bit about what women actually want, Matt, though, you know, important for us. I've been wondering about this. Here's the problem. The right recognized the problem. But unfortunately, I think their answer is coercionist and cruelty and sometimes conflating masculinity with as a zero-sum game. and returning to the 50s.

I don't think their vision of masculinity is the right one. The far less vision of masculinity, their view is the following. Men, you don't have a problem. You are the problem. That's not productive. And also, their answer, act more like a woman. That's not the answer either. The main problem is your masculinity.

And what's interesting is that while there's a kind of a public narrative, I think, for many women, this is anecdotal evidence, but it really is true. I'm not making this up. women will consistently ask, how can they meet men at my age? A woman is divorced at my age. The pool of available men is really tiny. And they'll say to me, do you have anyone you could set me up with? And about half the time, they'll say something along the lines,

either way, and they look around and they go, I like a masculine man. Because their narrative and they're outward facing is they want a sensitive man. I mean, it's a snarky joke, but I think it's somewhat accurate. do you really want a sensitive man? That just leaves two of you in the car crying and the parking spot empty. And that is snarky and it's sexist, but I think there's some truth to that. I think women are drawn to men who demonstrate some of the traditional attributes of masculinity,

despite this public narrative that I really just want a sensitive man, a man in touch with his feelings. I often demonstrate my masculinity by reverse parking in a single turn. People swoon at my parking prowess. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Papa, when I grow up, can I park like you? Yeah, son, I'll teach you. I'll teach you the ways. There's a little camera on the back and I just hold the lines.

My wife is constantly impressed with me not having to rotate the map when I, Yeah. Oh, yeah. Maps don't exist anymore. We all use iPhone, so it's not even real. I can't back that up. Well, okay. I guess that's true-ish at the beginning when he's talking about, like, you know, the

stereotypical what the left thinks an ideal man is versus what the right does. But I think there's a caveat there, which is that that's a kind of far spectrum stereotype. I think there are a lot of people, whatever, left of center or right of center, or in the big, creamy middle of whatever, for whom their conception of what roles are and gender roles and who pays on a date and whether the man should be brave and strong and so on. Like, I just don't think it's all,

I don't think there's a unified, okay, this is what everyone who's left to center agrees, this is how men should be, you know? That's my caveat, I'd add to that. He did say far left. He did say like, yeah, he did. Fair enough, fair enough. He did.

And he is speaking, you know, he's kind of like acknowledging stereotypes. But like for me, the interesting thing is like he is clearly saying, look, the right-wing answer isn't the right one. Yeah, he's very clear about that. It's a little bit, you know, Ma, it's in line with us. It's Alan Partridge. I'm mad as hell that wants something in the middle. That's the message. What about the last bit, Chris?

What do women want? Do you think that's... Oh, masculine man? Yeah, do you think that's... men. Well, some of them do. But I, you know, in general with this conversation, one of the things is like, you can't say you like a masculine man. And I'm like, can you not? Like, I don't, I don't understand who it is. It's not allowed to profess that they like, whatever. I don't know. A lumberjack, a fireman, right? Or whatever. But like, I do know that at the extreme ends of that,

like the bodybuilder physique, I believe that is more appealing to men. Other men are more impressed by that than women are. But I'm not saying the overall like masculinity being an attractive or the kind of stereotypical.

What's his name from a street car name Desire? Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I know you mean, but I don't know. Why am I asking you? A name. The guy that says,

Stella, Stella. Yeah, that guy. Yeah, that guy. He became fat. Like, I know everything about him. I just, he was in the island of Dr. Maro. Yeah. Don't worry.

Everyone knows who you mean. It's fine. Marlon Brando. Like, I, you know, I think that's broadly true. Like, my wife gives me a pat on the back if I go swimming and I stay in shape because you would like to see more upper body strength. She thinks that is better than the alternative, which is, I guess, a formal masculinity, right?

Here's the thing, though. I think, I think it's all dependent. I mean, like, the reason why I hesitate is not out of any kind of political niceties or anything. It's just that there is like a lot of cultural diversity in it. And what I mean by that is, you know, like the kind of like Wuthering Heights type moody, emo, you know, character. Like that's a type, right, that chicks dig some chicks, right? At some points in time, right? And by some standards, that kind of romantic poet type is not very masculine.

but by other metrics it is, right? And other women like different things. So I think this is a bit a little bit complicated, right? Well, yeah. And, you know, I live in Japan, Matt, in case you didn't remember. And here, for example, there are these establishments called host bars where people, women, majoratively go to be flirted with and talk to by attractive men, right? And the men in those bars are not grizzled, masculine type man.

They're in good shape. But they're generally what people would regard in the West as like pretty boys. Yeah, yeah. Softer, milder. Yeah, that's a type. And a lot of people like that. Yeah, so this is why I hesitate. Some people like the Yankees.

Some people like the Yankee type. Yeah, and like the exactly the same is true for men, right? Like not every man thinks, okay, the stereotypical, ultra-feminine. blonde bombshell type thing who's always making a hair pretty and wearing a lot of makeup. Like that's not every guy's idea of what they want, right? No, but I think the general thing is just they're saying like, you know, if you look at broad trends or whatever, if you look at studies about attraction, women prefer masculine type faces and stuff.

But like, again, I just feel like you are allowed to say that. You are. I've seen tons of studies published about it and whatever. Okay. So, you know, that's what he's saying. I think what he's getting at? I mean, trying to be as charitable as possible. But before I am charitable, Chris. The other thing too is, I'm the kid of my daughter's taste and boyfriends.

She's definitely got a type. Definitely physically fit. Definitely good looking and so on. But these are these young guys, they're not like, they're not the grizzles. Are you saying, no, no. They're, masculine. I don't know what generation they are even, Zumas. But I don't know.

They're more the pretty boy type. That's fine too, right? Whatever. But I'm trying to be charitable here. And I think what he's talking to is some sort of politicized conception of what men should be like or what women should be like or whether both genders should be as adrogynous as possible. And, yeah, no. They're complaining about toxic masculinity, aren't they? I mean, they're complaining that that is, you know, traditional meal stereotypes,

Harley-Burly types are now regarded as, you know, dinosaurs. That's a sort of fashion. Nobody really likes that. But they're saying, actually, secretly, people do want men to be, you know, mussely and rude. Rude. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, I think what he was talking to is, like, being, like, stoic and not necessarily sharing all of their feelings. Oh, yeah, that's right. That's right.

Stoic. Yeah. Not crying in the car, like Jordan Peterson. Do women want, maybe Jordan Peterson, you see the acoterop of what women want? He knows. I don't know. I don't know how to talk about this topic. Calm time, man.

Calm time. It's all right. You're alive. Look at you getting all flustered. I don't know what women want. This is fun of them. I've never known. I've never known that.

Look, I'm saying in this, you're allowed to say what Scott Galloway said. fine. You didn't need to whisper. It is fine. Yeah. It's okay. Now, to highlight the duality more of Strath, the kind of different solutions he has. So we heard some of his tax solutions, right? He talked a little bit about that. This is another solution he has, which is a little bit different. So let's see what you think about this one. It's a problem from the inside, that it's the enemy within. It's your neighbor. It's people who are challenging a current orthodox. that they're the enemy. And I think America would really benefit

from all young people serving in the agency of their country and having a chance to see what, if you go out in the U.S., if you walk the streets of Austin, if you meet people, if you walk the streets where I live in New York or Florida or Colorado, I can't get over how wonderful other Americans are.

Because, unfortunately, I'm extremely online. And I believe that's what America is. And the reality is it's not. It's algorithms lifting up the shittiest part of American American. misrepresenting it. And the really unfortunate thing about AI is it's crawling online. It's not crawling the real world.

So I think getting young people out to serve in the agency of their country, it would disproportionately benefit men who, quite frankly, at the age of 18, as the father of two boys I know this, a lot of them are ready for college. They're still dopes. That was. And they're just not ready. So I think a lot of these kids would benefit from two years. And by the way, it doesn't have to be military.

It can be helping seniors. It can be a smoke jumper. It can be clearing brush for a fire. It can be health. whatever it might be, taking care of our national parks, but meeting different kids from different regions, ethnicity, sexual orientations, and realizing how fortunate they are to be in America.

Let me just contextualize a little bit there, Matt. So he was recommending, like, mandatory military service as a solution to help people, learn to be better rounded people and get the masculine urges out and whatnot. But I think a lot of the problem would be solved by just programs that would be available to both men and women. the biggest, for example, if I could pick one program, it'd be mandatory national service.

And it wouldn't just be for men, it'd be for men and women, similar to what they do in Israel. Because it allows you to, as a man, display, competence, prestige. It makes you more attractive as a mate when you come out of that. It teaches you a lot of skills about orderliness and conscientiousness. It allows you to get your shit together. It gives you lineage and a path toward making your life better. And this was an elaboration on that point, right, that men and boys need to do like voluntary service for society before they can mature. It's kind of an old idea, isn't it? Like they had the Peace Corps, right?

That was the thing in the US. Wasn't that a similar thing to what he's talking about? And like in Australia, we have a thing called Australian Volunteers Abroad where, you know, you can go overseas and do a bit of volunteering. So, you know, I think there's nothing wrong with that opinion. It's fine. I mean, I think you could argue against it and say it's not necessary. Like I liked what he said about, I mean, it's a, it's a number.

obvious trite statement, but people are actually pretty normal and pretty nice across the United States and in most places in the world, in Japan or Australia, maybe Northern Ireland, I don't know. I'd say, probably not, maybe not Northern Ireland. You know, and it's trite, but it's true, right, which is that the stereotypes, which I think the online discourse sort of leans into, is this weird, distorted caricature of people online? And it's trite, but it's true, right but again i'm totally going on vibes here but i don't think there's anything wrong with the idea of having a cultural norm where school leaders before they go off and study to become a dentist or whatever you know just do something wildly different that puts them out in the big world

and mixing with lots of different people you know i think that's a perfectly fine idea but i don't know i don't know if there's necessarily a problem that needs fixing that's that's my new comment there Yeah, and I mean, like just the highlight as well. So he does talk about that, but as mentioned earlier, he also at various points, talks about things like this. Also, I just think there's a series of social and economic programs to lift up young people. People under the age of 40, 24% less wealthy than they were 40 years ago, people over the age of 70, 72% wealthier. We have slowly but surely implemented a series of tax policies that reflect the following. Old people have figured out a way to vote themselves more money. So 120 billion. cost of living adjustment and Social Security flies right through Congress, the $40 billion child tax credit that would benefit young families get stripped out of the infrastructure bill. So there's some, I think we should start with the programs that lift all young people up. Because if you put more money in their pockets, quite frankly, there's just going to be more

mating. Yeah, yeah. And I think this was in response to Chris Williamson again, steering it towards what are the special ways in which men are victimized and downtrodden. And, Scott bends it towards actually the bigger issue is about young people generally right facing the same generational yeah generation and I think 90% of reasonable people would 100% agree with that you know he's he's just clearly clearly right I think that this sort of gerontocracy that's kind of formed through the concentration of wealth to people that already had it so you know he's I mean look and Chris by the way I continue to listen to stuff like the prof G podcast sometimes This guy, Scott Galloway, he's not on it.

It's his younger, young off-sider, who I quite like. And they're often talking about these sorts of issues. And, yeah, like, this is something they talk about a fair bit. Yeah, like, so for me, this is just highlighting that, you know, he has a mix of proposals and policies and things and right, like, and some of it is get people, perhaps, to do mandatory military service. I think I'm less.

I'm more of that. but like encourage them to volunteer and help out. Sure, fine. This is, this is fine. And also like that, you know, we need tax policies and social policies that encourage wealth distribution or people to invest in communities and stuff. That's so fine. Like I do feel that in some respect in podcast, when I hear these things, it's being packaged as forbidden knowledge or, you know, like here's the thing that people need to know. And it's like, I've heard this in a million different.

hundred times. But I don't think Scott Galloway presents it like that, right? To my recollection and how he generally talks, as I've heard him, you know, many hours of him talking about any manner of things. His general presentation is, yeah, you know, here's my opinions about this, that and the other. Yeah, I guess it's more the framing of the podcast tour or notes of being a man. Like, I'm just pointing out that this comes from a long line of middle-aged, left of center men offering these kind of opinions. Like, it's just, it's not surprising, right? Like, and your mileage with it will largely vary with the degree to which you think

these are, you know, sensible proposals or these are proposals which are not addressing the core issue or whatever, and a lot of that will depend on your particular political preferences and whatnot. So I'm just pointing that out, Matt, but he does also. talk about this, this is actually from a little bit later, but this is an example that he's, he's also talking about psychological stuff. So listen to this. But the third thing, and it's lesser known, and I think it's kind of a secret weapon, is kindness. And I think there's a differentiation between being kind and nice. I think women notice when you're being really

nice to them, but you're not necessarily a kind person. That's interesting. How would you delineate between the two? Well, you're being so nice, complimenting her, you're hoping to get her to like you and have sex with you, as opposed to planning trees, the shade of which you won't live under. You know, holding doors open for people, being patient, small acts of kindness with no reciprocal expectation from other people. So sort of authentic, non-pliable, I have boundaries, but they're pro-social. Yeah, just trying to be good, trying to give time, energy, and empathy.

You know, someone, the way I used to approach it as a younger man through some fucked up sense of masculinity is if someone cut me off in traffic, I thought I need to restore the balance of the universe by speeding up and cutting them off. If someone at the Delta ticket counter didn't give me the respect I thought I warranted as a one K member I got back in their face.

And what I realize is that masculinity and kindness is not being walked over but saying, oh, I'm sorry, ma'am, but this is, and if someone cuts you off, you don't know what's going on with their life. You don't know if their kid is struggling with diabetes. You just don't know. I think that type of kindness.

Also, I don't think it's genetic. Or some of it may be genetic. I think it's a practice. If you start trying to be really thoughtful and be nice and compliment people. I mean, you know, it's cookie cutter wisdom, but it's not wrong. I mean. No, it's kind of, I think this is the interesting thing for me, is this reminded me of Jordan Peterson-esque stuff,

but without Peterson's like throwing in of religiosity and crazy, you know, like political stuff tied to it. Although, but you did hear Chris Williamson trying to interject a little bit of pseudoscientific. Evil, sake, type, pliable, non-playable, pro-social boundaries and stuff. And it's just being kind. It's just... Calm down. It's just...

But like you say, you know, in some ways it's saccharine, it's right. But like the message, this is a thing which I think why some people find Scott Galloway refreshing in this area is because he's basically saying like, you know, it's actually. Obvious and normal things. So in the current discourse, I'm definitely on board with that. I mean, I've never understood people who get road rage and stuff like that or people who drive aggressively, frankly. And I've never understood that kind of, I don't know, that kind of reactive posturing. On the other hand, I've never had a problem with understanding there are situations when you need to be assertive. There were situations when I was a PhD student where I was getting a bit of bullying from a professor there in the thing.

And the situation required assertion and it wasn't very pleasant, but I was quite comfortable doing it. So, like, to my years, it sounds like it should be obvious, but like road rage or trying to get someone back if they cut you off is a stupid thing to do. But maybe some people need to hear that. So that's perfectly good for Scott to say that, I guess. Yeah, and we'll hear more. He has kind of more fleshed out philosophy about modern masculinity. I'm going to get on to it.

Yeah, and his advice there in terms of, like, impressing girls. pressing your date in terms of just being an authentically decent person that is polite to the waiter because, you know, you're polite to people, not because you're trying to send some Evo Sykes signals about your, your mateship status and whatever. I mean, again, to my ears, it sounds incredibly obvious. But, you know, for Chris Williamson, this is like, maybe a lot of people who listen to Chris Williamson, this is something they need to hear. Yeah, big news. Yeah, big news. Yeah. Yeah, well, I, so the YouTube comments weren't coming to Scott Galloway, but that's not the entire audience, right? You don't know.

But in any case, Matt, so, you know, you heard Scott Galloway outline things about, you know, the rights narrative being appealing, but they're not doing things right, the left, like not really offering, man, a good message, just like, you're toxic, your piece of shit. You're bad, you're bad, you're bad, get back in your box. But he was saying, you know, there's a, there's a third way, right? which is the way that he wants to outline. Now, Chris Williamson's response to this is quite interesting, and it leads to further discussion. So he comes with a prepared mini essay. So let's hear it.

And I don't think that there's been fantastic policies put forward by either side, but at least this is why guys are turning to the right, that they don't feel demonized if they go there. Well, they don't feel seen. I feel like they're not going. I don't feel like they're, I don't feel like they're, I don't feel like they're moving towards the Republican Party. Moving away from the ruling.

I feel like they're leaving the Democratic Party. Agreed. I've got this short essay that I wanted to read you that I think is interesting when you talked about the levels of vulnerability, sensitivity, sort of balancing, being in touch, not being sort of, how do you say, pathologically stoic with also being masculine. So this is the challenge of motivating men. Some advice on how to support men. Men want to aim high without feeling insufficient if they fall short. Men want their suffering to be recognized and appreciated without being pandered to or patronized and made to feel weak.

Men want to believe that they can be more without feeling like they're not already enough. Men want to be able to open up without being judged. Men want support without feeling broken. Men want to be loved for who they are, not for what they do. The TLDR is, blending inspiration with compassion is not an easy task. How do I set lofty goals which drive me to fulfill my potential? without feeling less than, if I don't get there tomorrow, is a question asked by every guy ever.

The desire for self-love and high-performance comes into conflict inside the mind of everyone, men especially. Sure, some men are all driving goals with non-introspection, and sure, some men are all reflection and inner work with few external desires, but most men desire a mix of encouraged self-belief and understanding support. Inevitably, these two things come into conflict.

Basically, every man just wants to hear, I know you can be more, but you are enough already and even if you just stay where you are I'll be right here next to you you're going to be great but you don't need to be great and I'm with you no matter what

well that's simple enough that's uh I mean is that too much to ask is that too much to ask it sounds like we want the law it's very complicated you have to dial it in just so I mean

yeah like this this is interesting to me I'm like vulgar poetry. It is interesting. I'm sorry to be mean. I mean, I've got to, you know, I've just routinely mean to Chris Rhylinson at this point, but why not? I mean, but it is funny.

Like, if I read that to my wife or just explained that, those sentiments to my wife in any way, shape, or form, I think she would just laugh me out of the room. She just would, right? Like, I know that people would go, no, this is all self-helpy clinical speak, which I know that a lot of people across the political spectrum, especially the United States respect and think is normal. But in my culture, right? That is just needy bullshit that, you know, that I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And I don't think I've got pathological, toxic masculinity or any of those things.

But it's just, I mean, come on. I mean, like, isn't it a bit much? It's a bit much because, like, you know, the bit that I can jive with is everybody wants to be appreciated when they're trying hard. And everybody likes support from loved ones, even if they don't become the prime minister of the fucking world or whatever, the case is. But like, he presents it as, you know, this is the unique, this is the master.

And every man has sat there and thought, like, I wish that people would just say to me, you are enough. You are enough, Chris. You are enough, Chris. You are enough. I believe he can be more as a podcast host. I believe you can do more, but you're enough as you are, right? I mean, no, I mean, like, of course there's a kernel of truth in that.

Like, everybody would just go, it's like, hey, try your best, but, you know, it'd be the same with my kids, right? I encourage them to try their best at school. If you can get A's, I'm like, this is great, well done. If they don't manage to get A's, I, that's fine. You just love them on the ear and say, no dinner for you tonight. I shamed them, I shamed them relentlessly. You know, and, you know, that's, so that's true, but that's not a, that's not a guy thing.

That's just a everybody thing, right? Like, just, I don't know. I feel that, like, the thing that men should realize with this kind of stuff is, like, if that appeals to you, fair enough, right, fair enough. But don't be good judging. Like, when women, right, you know, this is what women want for men, and they produce a big list of things that say. That's right. If you've got your manifesto of precisely what how women should be treating you,

then you're going to have to let them have a, they're allowed to have some list as well. But the other funny thing about it too is that like that to me reads, like if that was not delivered by Chris Williamson, I could imagine that being delivered by like a very woke guy. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Like exactly the kind of guy that Chris Williamson's audience would, despise, basically. And again, it's fine to have feelings, and it's fine to express them in a slightly cringe,

emo kind of way. That's all fine. But just, you know, recognize that maybe you're not the kind of hunter, red and tooth and claw, grizzle, you know, potential weekend warrior, commando adventurer here, legend in your own lunchtime. Yeah, no, maybe consider what you are. when og comes back to the half after hunting the

A hard day of clubbing the mammoths Yeah and well they don't club They use spheres, okay Sure so much you know But anyway when he comes back from the hut And he feels the mammoth got away Right It was close on

What he wants to hear Guga say Is that you know That was enough You did Enough And then he'll be good He tried his best That's the main thing.

Yeah. He'll try this fast. That's the thing. So, yeah, yeah. But you know, Matt, you are allowed to do this in the kind of right-leaning space, Jordan Peterson world. As long as you present it, that it's masculinity, right? Like, it's men admitting that they are men and they have feelings, God damn.

And they're not even allowed to admit that they're sad about stuff. Yeah. I'm going to cry for them. I mean, that's the bit that strikes me. I'm not even having a go at it because this is a, this is a general. You are, but carry on. Well, I am because, I mean, it's just such a universal emo sentiment, right? Oh, yeah, yeah.

Like, it's a universal sentiment. But what's really striking is how it's coded, how it's coded to use that word, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's fine. If it's coded masculinity nanosphere thing, that's fine. That's cool. But if it's coded as like soft as woke, woke, a weak, then it's a weak man. It's like, but no, it's the same picture. It's the same picture.

You're all week. You're all week. Just get on with it. We're all week. That's all right. We're all week. Just get on with it. Yeah.

Well, so let's see how Scott responds to that because it, I mean, he prepared the essay, right? He prepared an essay. Yeah. I'm prepared at that. So let's see what Scott says in response. Yeah, two thoughts across my mind. I really like listening to that. And I feel like what you just described, if I were to say,

summarize it or distill it all in the one word, it'd be dad. And that is, you just sort of described what I see as my mission and purpose as a father. And that is, my oldest is applying to college. So I'm at home with him yesterday and we're talking about his supplemental essay and we sit down and, you know, he said he was going to finish it in the morning and he didn't. And I'm all over his I'm like, okay, you said that this morning. You're up playing fucking video games. Get your shit together. You're not 15.

I mean, I'm on them. And then he writes it and I'm like, you know, it's great. And the reason it's great is because it's you and you're great. You know, it's a little bit, it's a mix. And I think very few people, except a father figure or an older male, can communicate both those things in equal measure and have it really resonant. with a boy. I just think there's certain things that men can do for boys that is very difficult for women and vice versa. So when I hear that, I think all of it is true. And I think the people who are

most effective at delivering that type of salt and vinegar kind of love and inspiration and motivation and occasionally swift kick in the ass are a male role model. And if you were to look at where I think going to problems, if you look at the single point of failure, it's when a boy loses a male role model. But to even say that boys need men is to somehow immediately evokes this reaction, well, women can't raise boys? I mean, I was raised by single immigrant mother, lived and died a secretary. Lied of my life. But there's just certain things I couldn't talk to her about. Yeah, okay. So you took it in a slightly different direction more about the parents.

child relationship rather than a man-woman relationship. Yeah. What do you think? Well, so I think he did the kind of thing that we've seen throughout this interview where Chris Rhythamson gives him something. And then like you said, he's like, well, that's great. I love that. And that makes me think about tax policies.

Or, you know, in this case, this makes me think about being a dad and having, you know, the disciplinary thing. and also the ability to say, like, you're great, you know, and you need a little bit of both and blah, blah, blah. And that's right. Like, that's what Scott Galloway is a lot about. Like, he's got, you know, middle-aged dad energy. And he's saying, you know, you need that energy sometimes.

And it's a little bit coded to you. I'm not allowed to say that you need follow figures to be stern, but sometimes kind and whatever. And I'm like, I don't know. I think it's fine. And you can recognize that there are other patterns that exist. And he already said that people, you know, who are in like same sex relationships or whatever marriages can have.

Can do that too. You know, yeah. So he's talking about older men being able to be intimidating in a way that sometimes it's hard for a woman to replicate. And that's true in my experience as well. Like older men can be intimidating. eating because like Jordan Peterson would say at least in my experience there was much more danger of physical violence appearing somewhere from older than would be the case with older

women right I know Jordan Peterson likes to say that but it just is like you know it but it can it can vary by household right there can be households where the wife or the muller is the one that like slaps the kids and the follower is the the softer one but on average I would imagine the dads are the ones that are, you know, being more physically aggressive or whatever. You know, I'm just, I'm speaking in general all these. Yeah, I know you don't mean, like, physically aggressive in, like, attacking them. I mean, like, getting, get slap and stuff. I just mean that, like, no, that isn't a fear.

But that was a fear when I was, when I was younger. Yeah, you're speaking to your childhood, perhaps. Yeah. I mean, I mean, I guess I never, this is like the other thing about, like, what women want like I genuinely don't know what to say about it Chris because I genuinely like I don't I just don't know if any of that's true or not like what I because I when I think about my experience that I don't really know whether or not those roles were really true from my wife and I when our kids were younger now and when my son was like really young for instance all all the daughters

when they were really upset someone that made them cry whatever they'd be just as quick to come running to me for a hug and that kind of, you know, the stereotypical mummy comforting thing as my wife. And likewise, I think my wife has been just as scary to them when they're being naughty. And I'm not, I've never really done any of those things. You're not scary. I'm not scary and I've never been scary to them. So I don't know.

Like I just, I generally don't know. I think just mileage varies. It's so idiosyncratic. I don't know. It definitely varies. But, you know, my. similar. I'm speaking, you know, as a follower of two kids here, right? And like in my generation in Northern Ireland, right? Like, I think it's all also strongly culturally influenced. Like,

if you're in Mongolia in the 80s, it's going to be different than New Zealand in the 2020s or whatever, right? And yeah. But in any case, like 80s parenting in Northern Ireland, there was very clear gender roles, right? And the father was typically the more stern. But I had friends. where their muller was the one that was like scary, right? So it wasn't universal, but there was that general tendency. And with me and my wife, my wife is the one that is harsher and generally more scary than I am. But the thing which I think does apply is that although in general, the kids are less scared of me, when I've gotten very angry with them, that scared them more, right?

because like, you know, I've talked to my son about it as well. And there's just like, it's not like I'm going to beat the kid, right? I'm not saying that. No, I know what you're saying. Just something that the voice and the presence can make them stop and pay a little bit more attention. Yes, and that's what he's talking about. Like I remember the situation of the beach where the kids were out there and they were getting out far in the breakers and it was, they were doing stuff and it was verging on dangerous.

and the mothers were kind of saying stuff or yelling stuff because you have to at the beach. And they're kind of not really getting through. But, you know, sometimes if you just have a loud voice and it's deeper or something, then they kind of stop and they kind of look at you. But I just think that's a very small part of it. It's a very specific thing. And I think like it also, you can view it as well. That's to do with the biology and the threat of violence and all that.

the kind of, you know, the Jordan Peterson version of it, but it can also just be, you know, if you view it as the social construct world, if you want as well, it can be that that is the association, right, that has had with who is the disciplinary voice and all this kind of thing, right? And just to play that that is what he's talking about, Matt. So listen to this, let's just follows on from that last bit. You heard at the end there. I was raised by single immigrant mother, lived and died a secretary, lie to my life. but there's just certain things I couldn't talk to her about.

Her sheer physical presence didn't threaten me. Occasionally you need a deeper voice. When I yell, when my kids are five and eight, and some people will say, well, you shouldn't be yelling. Okay, that means you don't have kids. There's just, that's just a different, that mix of feminine and masculine energy

is really important. Yeah, but I think he can, I mean, you know, it's trueish. It depends. It's true. I know. I know. I'm just saying that's what he's saying.

That's his argument. No, I know. And I'm not, I'm just trying to, I'm just trying to delineate exactly what it is, right? And like, it's trueish. But the problem is when you're talking about feminine energy and masculine energy,

they're kind of vague concepts. And to say people need a mix of the two things is kind of, like it's very social constructivist, right? Like, what are these constructed things that you say that people need a mix of the ingredients of if you've detached it from concrete stuff. So I don't know.

I mean, it's fine, but I think it is a little bit, I don't know. It's a little bit tripe, I think, perhaps. Now, let's see if you think this is trite then. The study I saw was that

two 15-year-olds, a boy and a girl, both sexually molested, neither crime was less heinous than the other. The boy is sexually molested is 10 times more likely to kill himself later in life. So I think there just needs to be a general sidegeist that if for whatever reason a boy doesn't have male mentorship and role models in his life, that it's the mother and the community's responsibility to get involved, to get men involved in his life. Right. That was an interesting factor. Ten times more likely. Is that something you fact checked, Chris?

Yes, it is. No. I could not. find support for that claim, as is often the case, right? The statistics are exaggerated. So there's higher reported suicide attempts and abused boys compared with abused girls. I found a study where 55% of sexually abused boys had attempted suicide versus 29% of girls. Okay. But one, that's not 10 times. okay and also this was talking about attempts not suicides right like so it's it's much lower when you actually achieve suicides but this is the thing whenever scott cites these things it's always a hyperbolic version so you know if you go check and look into the literature and that's and i did it's basically like yes there is an elevated risk to boards but it's nowhere near that large well

Well, hang on. Just let me clarify here. So you're looking at the literature of the of the extra risk of suicide or suicide attempts if that child was molested. Is that that's the statistic you were checking? Yes, because he was very specific, right? Two 15-year-olds, a boy and a girl are sexually molested, and what is their relative risk to kill themselves later in life? And it's 10 times higher for a boy. So I went and looked for studies that were about like adolescent abuse and later negative life outcomes and couldn't find the exact study that he's referencing, but found tons of studies, right, that looked at that.

and they don't find... Stuff on the order of 10 times, right? No, it's nowhere near. Whatever the effect size or differential effect size would be. And a lot of... A lot of the difference is kind of confounded by the fact that men are more effective at committed suicide. Yeah, well, what you're talking about is the base rate. Yeah, that's right.

There's just a higher base rate. But the base rate is different in large part because men use methods, which are more effective. Like, they shoot themselves in the head more often is... the case, right? Rather than using pills, right? But this is the kind of thing where it's all confounded, right? But, you know, as we saw

in part one, these, like, factoids are thrown out. It's just the way that Pops psychology and podcast work, where people get little figures and, like, dot them into their speech, right, to illustrate a point. Yeah. And, yeah.

Yeah, they thought them into a point, which is tangential to begin with, right? So what, remind me, what was the point that he was making there, that boys need a father figure to help them deal with, I don't know, in case they were, what was the point he was making? Well, the argument is that, like, boys are more badly affected by locking, like, meal role models. Yeah, and see, so that's quite tangential to that, to the statistic, right?

Like, that's a separate point. Like, do boys need role models? Are they more badly affected by not having a same-sex role model? That seemed entirely separate from the question. of do boys commit suicide at a higher rate if they're sexually abused, right? It's a tangential citation to begin with. That's my point. You could say that, Matt, but I'll let them, I'd like that more.

Maybe that's all conventionary. So this stinks of her. It's all. But if I remember her work on the work Richard's done, the moment a young man, a boy loses a male role model to death, does he's abandonment? he becomes more likely at that moment to be incarcerated than graduate from college. Right.

Yep. A girl, while maybe being more promiscuous because she's looking for male approval in the wrong places, she has the same rates of college attendance income and self-harm. Makes no different. And so essentially, while boys are physically stronger, they're mentally and emotionally and neurologically much weaker. And we don't want to even acknowledge that. Boys are weaker, neurologically and emotional. More fragile, perhaps.

Yeah, more tenuous. Yeah, so did you look into that one? One, because, again, it seems, I don't know. So let me remember, girls become more promiscuous when they lose a male role model figure or a father figure. And boys become much less likely to graduate from college and whatever live outcomes. That was the empirical references there. Did you look into those as well? Yeah, yeah, I did.

And I could go through at some length of it. But the general thing is, fuller absence being linked to higher incarceration and lower college attainment for boys, directionally supported, but the particular mechanisms are confounded a lot, right? Like, it's certainly not as simple. And I believe what he's referencing here

is a blog from the Institute for Family Studies, which makes these claims, right? And it's got percentages graduating from college with biological follower present, 35% versus biological follower absent, 14%. And did they control for all the massive confounds with socioeconomic status, right? Because actually single-parent households are socioeconomically far more concentrated and, you know, more disorganized households with things changing all the time, much more concentrated at the lower end of things, which obviously. has a massive correlation with college attendance. So did they control for those other things for socioeconomic? Well, Matt, this is a blog citing a whole bunch of sources, right?

So individual books and whatnot, some of them have controlled and some of them have not. But when I look, it's directionally true, but again, overstated and the confidence with which, you know, the particular mechanism is applying. Because there's obviously, like if there is no biological follower present, there's usually a lot of other things going on. Exactly. That's right. There's a whole bunch of socioeconomic things associated with that. So look, I'm not having a go with this because I don't like the narrative.

Like his narrative there is very nice, right? The narrative is, hey, you know, boys are vulnerable too. They need support and stuff. You know, everyone can get on board with that. But yeah, I guess I'm just a little bit sensitive at this point, Chris, where this kind of picking up these little factoid's because they, fit nicely into just so story about that stuff. I mean, I think it's like it's kind of probably trivially true that having two parents, all things being equal, is going to be more conducive to all kinds of positive life

outcomes than one or zero, right? That seems, you know, I don't think most people would find that shocking. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. So, Matt, there's a paper, right, when I was looking into this. follower absence and trajectories of offspring mental health across adolescence and young adulthood findings from a UK birth cohort. And this is people from 2022. They don't cite in any of their papers, right? But this paper, for example, if I just read the highlights, fall or absence during early childhood is associated with greater levels of depression in

early adulthood. Early childhood follower absence is associated with more severe depression trajectories across adolescence and early adulthood. effects are strongest for females with absent followers in early childhood. In the discussion, you know, the introduction, they say the evidence with regard

to sex differences in the association between follower absence and offspring depression is similarly inconclusive with some studies reporting stronger effects for females, while solar studies suggest that males are worse affected. And this paper, if you go and read for it, you know, it's complex math.

It's all odd ratios of varying sizes and it's talking about the time when the person leaves affects the overall trajectories and so on. Like, it's just the general pattern is it's more complicated and the way they present it is kind of like, you know, boys are not going to go to college if their follower leaves, whereas like girls are going to be fine. And that's not what the literature says. Yeah, that's right. It's just that it's a very reductive sort of two-dimensional, low resolution for what a better phrase,

presentation of the literature. And I guess that's the thing we're increasingly sensitive to, right? Because I'm sure there's nuggets of truth and all of that. I'm much more suspicious about the fact that boys are more affected than girls. Like you said, that study there found the exact opposite thing. I'm sure you could go and find other studies which find something that supports Scott Galloway's thing. But the point I think here is that what I strongly suspect Scott Galloway did, and I say this is someone he generally likes his vibe, being a boomerish middle-aged bloke myself

coming from a similar point of view is that I think I think what he's done is he comes across a study or finds a study that fits or a blog citing a study a blog citing a study that's right that fits the story that he likes it

it's not even a bad story right the one that he's telling right it's just that's not evidence that's not how that you don't don't cite it is evidence but it is but don't cherry pick and be like a little magpie finding the shiny thing and slut it into the story you're telling and make out that,

okay, well, this is what the science is telling us. It's very simple. You know, I mean, by all means, tell your story, have your opinions. You know, I think Scott Galloway's, you know, so far, he's could generally, mostly fine opinions and all power to him. I encourage middle-aged men like myself to get out on the internet, give their opinions. But, you know, you just don't need to. Yeah, I don't know. It's just that presentation of it, the sciencey, thing. Yeah, and they'll point to, you know, Chris Williamson will point to researchers who specifically focus on this and have been on this show and have said, this is a clear pattern and they're referring to it. And those people have done all the research. But there you have to

factor in the selection bias of the researchers who are going on modern wisdom in general, right? And, you know, it's the same thing as, are there many people that are likely to talk to Chris Williamson about how screen time isn't actually that harmful? No, it will be Jonathan Hyde type stuff, which is the dominant thing, but that's not the dominant thing in the literature if you look, you know, at the kind of critical scholarship around it. So, so yeah, so anyway, the general picture is any time that a figure is cited or referenced in this conversation, you should take it with a significant pinch of salt because every single time I hunted it down and found like the people that I think it referenced or the source that it was from, it was exactly.

or hyperbolicly stated. And it's, like you said, it's not that it's not necessarily like pointing to something that actually applies in certain respects. It's just that it's not as extreme or simple as suggested. And yes, that's often the way and so on. But you don't have to do that. You could say it without the hyperbole. So anyway, that's it.

So I think a common pattern is whenever Chris Williams said, Scott Galloway or discussing research, it's kind of triggering. They get triggered by seeing headlines where you have to add in the sclimers or whatever. And I get triggered or we get triggered by people using scholarship in this like decorative way to just like rhetorically enforce the point. But in terms of actual programs and whatnot, you know, we heard some things and this was another one that was brought up and it was quite a surprising exchange about it. There are three times as, and quite funny, men aren't stepping up.

There are three times as many women applying to be big sisters in New York. To big sister. Big sister. Like, big brother, big sister. It's an adult who says, it's funny you don't know that. It's this wonderful program. And it's like, say you're a guy in your 30s or 40s, maybe have kids, maybe you don't. You can apply to be a big brother.

And all you do really is just hang out with a boy, usually a single mother, but a boy who doesn't have a lot of male mentorship. Okay. Called Big Brothers. It started a Big Brothers, then they launched Big Sisters. It's hugely successful program nationwide. Three times as women are applying to be big sisters of New York than men are applying to be big brothers. So men aren't stepping up.

Also, there's this dangerous taboo, Chris, where if you're a man, say you're a single successful dude in your 30s. You could mean a lot to a boy. He's going to be impressed by you. And there's this weird notion that you have to be the CEO or a parent or a baller or the head of Goldman Sachs. No, you just have to show up. You just have to take an interest in their life. and quite frankly save them from themselves because they make really stupid decisions

and just ask some questions. Also, quite frankly, because of the Catholic Church or Michael Jackson, there's a suspicion of men who want to hang out with boys. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I can speak with some experience here because, you know, I'm involved. Are you a big brother?

Not a big brother, but I'm involved in some youth groups. You know, the Amazing Shake, which is a program to, actually, the Australian version of it was sort of lifted from the United States. So it's a kind of thing to encourage young people to develop skills and social skills and be more confident and stuff like that, especially kids from lower SES backgrounds. That's something I'm happy to be involved. I mean, this is all through the kids, you know, so I can't claim too much.

Just for the kids. It's about the kids. It's more like I was railroaded into it because my kids are participating. But the other one is that, yeah, police citizens youth club. It's another kind of organization which also the outdoorsy camps and stuff like that. And, you know, like not so much the case of my kids, but most of the other kids that are the part of it, you know, there's a lot big benefits there in terms of, I don't know, role models and they're kind of pushing themselves and, I don't know, developing confidence and positive pro-social stuff. So Scott Galloway strikes me as someone who might be personally involved in that kind of thing, being a big brother or being. I think he's always talking about that he's mentoring several young men or whatever, but I think he's doing that like on his.

He's not part of an official program. Anyway, Scott Galloway seems to me. I don't know. He probably, he seems like, sorry, he might well be. You probably aren't big in Japan and you're a busy man. You know, you're a, you're a slack bastard, aren't you? I'm a big brother to everyone, Matt. I'm a big brother to my students.

I'm a big brother to people online. What about, what about Chris Riddinson? Do you think he's involved in the local youth groups there, Chris? Yeah. So, you know, Scott Gavillard. Alway, I allowed himself a little comment there where he said, you know, it's kind of funny that you don't know about this. And he there is making a comment that this is an important program, but it's not getting enough attention, right? But like in general, the thing that strikes me there is I know about the big polar program and I know about similar programs in general. Like, it's a obvious thing. There was a movie called Abider Boy with Hugh Grant that came out in the early 2000s. I never really understood that movie because I really think Hugh Grant had it all sorted at the beginning of the movie. His life was pretty much perfect as by my lights.

And then, you know, it made out like he had some big problem or something. And then he had to complicate things. I think he was doing pretty great. Matt, you're assuming that people understand that film. So just since you give a critique of it, just to mention it's like Hugh Grant pretends to be like involved in one of these programs in order to like pick up women. right and then he actually ends up getting involved and then as you might imagine the movie goes he becomes you know that he actually gets invested in the boy and i think at the end he adopts him or whatever but there's many films like this where this was like part of the plot right where

he doesn't he doesn't adopt him chris he doesn't adopt him no i i have they're just friends he's just friends he just friends the upshot is he becomes friends with the mom the whole family He gets connections in his life. And I don't know. Maybe it's my academic personality. I think his life is pretty great to begin with. No connections. Lots of peace and quiet.

Nice hi-fi system. Lots of time for reading. Do you know the George Clooney movie up in the air where he's like flying around to the plane firing people? Oh. And he lives out of a suitcase. You probably like that too. You're probably like, I like it.

He's queer. So look, the thing is I'm just saying they're in the cultural zeitgeist that these programs exist. I knew about them. I knew about them. I knew them in the backwaters of Belfast, we were aware that they existed. And it's just surprising to me that like, if I had a podcast dedicated to men's issues and men's conversation about men, it is really surprising that you don't know the big brother

program because like in all the hundreds and hundreds of episodes. Hang on. Hang on. To be fair to Chris Williamson, he didn't know about the big sister program. No, no. He didn't know about the big sister or the big brother. Oh, okay. All right.

Yeah. But in both cases, Matt, it made me think like, yeah, you know, if you're worried about like men and role models and stuff, why wouldn't you, in the hundreds of hundreds of episodes of all the influencers and all the culture war people, why wouldn't you have had on like a guy talking about the big brother program or talking about, I don't know, like men's volunteering services or whatever? It's just, it does speak to how the solutions are often like evo-scied. culture war shit as opposed to actually yeah like it's it's bullshit basically compared to the people that are actually doing something like the guy that actually runs those programs that railroated me into helping out his name is trevor standfast who's a primary school teacher in our local school and rain all of these things continues to do so now he's retired it takes an incredible amount of work and uh you know Trevor Trevor's never going to have a podcast giving advice to

people, but, you know, he's someone that's actually, like, he's, that's, that's right. That's right, this is my point, right? And, and also my mom's ex-partner who, they basically worked in a school for disadvantaged kids, kids that got thrown out of all normal schools, basically, a lot of indigenous kids and a lot of very poor kids, basically kids with behavioral problems, the most difficult, in scare quotes, kids you can imagine in terms of managing, and they ran serious programs, right to kind of lift these kids up and when he died at his funeral it was quite moving right because a lot of the kids from these poorer suburbs and i'm talking the south side of brisbane places like woodridge kingston bean lee and so on you know kids who had had now were now older and actually

had done really well and and there was indigenous performances first nations performances what i want to call it like there was a lot of people speaking from the heart about how much this guy had helped them and and made a real difference to that was once again he doesn't have a podcast no one's going to be hearing from him. And I guess this is the thing that really, I don't know, just grinds my ears a little bit, right? I mean, these are just two examples who I happen to know, right? Yeah.

But, you know, they're obviously everywhere. People listening will know people like this. And they're all over the world, people that have actually dedicated their lives to actually helping young people, including young boys in particular, who have a lot of behavioral problems. And, you know, they're not,

they don't have podcasts, they're not invited on podcasts, they're not made guests on things, like they're not here and they're the people you should be listening to i'm sorry i mean you know chris couldn't feel's going to catch the stick because he's the one sitting here doing the thing but you know there's any number of people bloviating on the internet about these issues in the abstract who have never done anything they've never done a single thing in their life to to actually action any of the issues that they're talking about well yeah my general thing is like you know i don't mind people sitting listening to this podcast

But it's just, you know, if your main issue, it would be like me, Matt, if I just complained constantly about the standards in academia and publication bias and studies aren't conducted well enough. And I didn't know about the Open Science Foundation. You'd be like, you know, isn't that directly relevant to all this stuff? It would just be strange, right? It would be strange. So anyway, there's that. Now, in terms of TX, Matt, here's a take by Scott

you know we've heard quite a few takes from Chris and stuff here's a take by Scott I wonder what you make of this and this is following on from that part of the conversation you have a room of 100 people and there's alcohol

almost all of the men at that moment would have sex with almost all the women most of the women would sleep with none of the men they have a much finer filter what happens over time I hung out with him at church or temple and I really liked the way he treated his parents I worked with him and he was just so good at his job.

We would meet up at after hour with friends for happy hour and he was really funny. I like the way he smelled. Men have to demonstrate excellence. Where are the venues of the third places now that men demonstrate excellence? They're not going into work, a lot of them because of remote work. And even if you were in work, there would be some policy against dating inside or a concern. Don't be that guy. And a third of relationships used to begin at work.

And by the way, about 99.8% of them are consensual. So what do you make of that tick, Matt? You get a room of a hundred men, you get them drunk, they'll sleep with anyone. They'll have sex. Nope. It's fact, Matt. You know, you go to a nightclub. You simply put alcohol in a man just.

Well, in a nightclub, that's a different scenario. There might be more truth of it in a nightclub. What's the smell thing? Don't women saying like I like how men smell? is that? Yeah, I think smells important. I think smells important for everybody. Yeah. Well, I guess it's important. I've just, it comes up a couple of times this conversation where they reference, like, the woman saying, you know, I really liked how he smelled. And I was like, do you mean, say that. I haven't used to this was a sense of a woman, but what's the same?

Maybe it's the Vosac thing, like the pheromones. Yeah. Whatever. Okay. But being, I guess, I guess what he's alluding to with. characteristic exaggeration is the proclivity, perhaps in the dating world, maybe men are less choosy about sexual partners. Yes, that is a tendency. Quite happy to get much, you know, more notches on the dead post or whatever than women. And he's saying, okay, women are looking to, you know, just get a sense of the guys.

See what, okay, fair enough. That's, that's probable. There's probably some truth in that. So I guess the second thing he's saying is maybe people are not There's no venue Or young people Yeah there's not enough venues for people

To encounter each other For men to demonstrate I mean he frames it in terms of excellence Which is kind of a weird way to frame it As terms of like I would Like I don't think necessarily women are looking for Like excellence is not the word right Smell

Yeah I don't know Having nice vibes being kind To dogs You know what I mean having a nice feel about them. That's not necessarily. Being an excellent painter of Warhammer miniatures, is that demonstrating? Maybe.

I think there are some geeky girls who are into that, you know, maybe. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, I, like, again, this is where we start to get into grievance mongering territory, right? And actually, Scott, he does go on to say, look, people are still meeting at work and dating, and he's had marriages and stuff. Because you heard Chris Williams and bring it at the end, you know, you're not allowed to do it. You're not even allowed to meet someone at work.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, you are actually. Like, even in my work university, it's explicitly said, yes, you are a day before work. There's certain conditions and, you know, cautions around that, obviously. You shouldn't probably did students. No, students generally discouraged. But, I mean, the point that it was making is that we should have lots of venues for people to be mixing socially in a natural situation. And actually that completely jibes with the kind of pop advice that people give to people that I've seen on Reddit and stuff like that, which, you know, when people complain about, how do I meet someone?

Yeah, go do something. Yeah, that's right. People always say, hey, go do go do something. Go join a group. Get a hobby. Go to games workshop. Yeah. Join.

Could be games workshop. Could be, I don't know. Could be something else. But the point is, like, go do things that you like that involve meeting other people. Don't go there with the view that you're going to be scanning the room and calculating your mate potential with different people and how do you demonstrate excellence. And let it happen naturally. And I think that's good. Again, I just, my only cripple here, and it is based on just personal anecdote.

But I just have found that the young people that I know, the younger generation in the 20 to 25 year old thing, they just, I don't know. I just, I haven't in my, in my world, Chris. in your anecdotal experience in my anecdotal experience I haven't found that young people are struggling to meet other people this is including my own young adult children

they seem to be meeting other people quite easily so I just I'm not sure if we have a crisis of it seems like the picture is being painted that everyone's at home in front of the computer all the time on their phone too afraid to talk to anyone else

never leaving the house and I don't know. It's just, I mean, maybe that's true in some places. It's true in some cases. It's true in some cases, but it's just, I don't know if it's not universally true, and it's certainly not true at all amongst all of the younger people that I know. They do, they do get out and meet other people and they don't, you know, it is possible. So I just, so I just debate the premise at all, but he's not wrong,

which is like, that's good advice for a young person, right? If you want to meet someone, if you're single and you prefer not to be, get a hobby. be sociable, go and put yourself in situations where you're going to naturally mix with other people. No, and these things are correct that like you can look at, you know, national trends and rates of depression and stuff and you can see changes and so on, right? Like there are trends that you can look at, right? The individual anecdotal experience do not counteract. But there's always complexities there.

Like, for example, just to highlight, if it is the key. that it becomes more normal for people to seek treatment for depression, you will see depression rates increase. It does not automatically mean that there is a huge amount more people who were depressed than before. So there's things like that. And there's also people that are aware of that and they factor it in and people to be it about the size of things and so on. But there are overall trends that are noted about. But you mentioned Matt about the kind of people being afraid to go out. And yes, that does come up. There is reference to the Me Too movement. Have I given you my bit about the hyper responders to Me Too? Have I given you this one?

This is cool. This is wet clay stuff, so go gentle with me on it. Me Too advice was absorbed disproportionately by men. The men who probably needed to actually be more confident around women took don't be pushy to heart and the men who were just blowing through boundaries already disregarded it entirely and i think this has resulted in nervous guys having their fears confirmed i knew i was too much for women i knew that they didn't like me i knew that i was already that this was crossing some sort of a boundary and you know david bus is book bad men or men behaving badly in the u.s uh identifies this perfectly it's not a thousand guys doing a bad thing each. It's one guy doing a bad thing a thousand times and there's a small cohort of them

committing all of the assaults over and over. This is why the, it's not all men, but it's always a man thing, which hides it's all men. Like the subtext is that it probably is or it could be or something like that. The same, the man of the bear thing was the exact same that I'm not going to go in a date because I might be unlived. All of this just sort of reinforces the dangerousness of men. What about that, Mark? The wrong people got the wrong message from me too. Well, I think I might surprise you here, Chris, and that I think I gave Chris a pass on this one.

You know, that's a possibility. That's a reasonable interpretation. I mean, like, it's obviously the case, right? That are, you know. The majority of men aren't sexually assaulting. That's right. It's like a 2080 rule. It's a universal thing, right?

there is that there is going to be a smaller number of people that are the majority of the offenders and so on, right? And the, like an effect of like a Me Too movement or any kind of sort of social movement, which kind of says is against that kind of thing, is going to, you know, naturally kind of be targeted at the broader group. So it could result in a bit more paranoia and a bit more uncertainty amongst the innocent, for a better word. whereas the worst defenders will probably just find a different way to get around it. So I don't know. Like I have no idea whether there's any truth or not, but I'm not going to slap poor old Chris Williamson around the head with it. I don't think the general notion that, you know,

that four out of five men are actually secretly rapists or this kind of thing. Like I think that's wrong, right? Any portrayal of that? But I heard this podcast long time ago. It was like a leftist podcast, right? And they were talking about some, in the same kind of way, they were talking about some statistic about how women was like, you know, two thirds of the men that they know are actually, like sexually assaulters or whatever.

And they were talking about that applying on that podcast. And the podcast was like two men and two women. And I was just thinking, right, but that means statistically one of you guys, right, is, but they're not applying it to themselves, right? They're imagining it's the, it's the bad people when they're doing, making those kind of statements. So on that thing, I do agree that people often take whatever lesson applies from some thing coming out and inaccurately apply it to populations and generally do not apply it to themselves, but to people that they don't like and they're more charitable to people that they don't. But his message is kind of like that.

This has me, it, man, totally a free it, right? Like, they're all completely chastised by me too. I think, I don't know, I think, Chris, I know I, I've just, when it comes to these topics, I'm just totally talking for a anecdotal experience, right? But I can't help it, right? Because I acknowledge that, though, because we get so many people pointing that out. Do we? Do we?

Yes, we do. But, I mean, I just, I just, as a, as a middle-aged person, I've just noticed this, right? But when I was a young person, like 20 years old or so, my friend group would be predominantly male, right? And romantic interests female, right? So there's kind of delineation. You could speak to a kind of a male culture or a female culture or whatever. And one thing I've noticed with my kids is that they really doesn't seem to be that sort of thing at all. Like my son has a really good friend who's a girl and there's two other friends and they're all hanging out and whatever.

and they're really good friends. And that's it. My second eldest daughters, her two best friends are a male and she's got a different boyfriend or whatever, right? And I'm just pointing, and this is a pattern that there's consistent,

right? It's not just with those examples. It's with what I've seen sort of generally, which is there is a lot more mixing in terms of the general friend groups. And I just think, I'm not sure that anything of what these people are talking about

is actually applicable to this younger generation. This is generation of 18 to 25 in Australia in Australia in my little town in my little field of experience. But I suspect it might be a broader kind of thing, which is that like in a very healthy way, there is a lot less traditional gender boundaries in terms of cultural stuff in terms of friends and stuff which sort of determines culture. And a lot of these issues are kind of old hat. Like these are like Generation X issues. Like these are issues that are applicable to a bygone age. Not my experience in Japan.

Japan is different. Japan is different. Come on. Yeah. We know. Or the UK or the UK for that matter. I haven't been in the UK in a while. You haven't been in the UK for a while, but I have been in the West.

And I don't think, I think Australia is a pretty good model to the USA, which is obviously the most important places in the world culturally and in podcast land. Yeah. I mean, people can, you know, people can comment on. Yeah, they will. People can comment. But this is what I'm saying. Is it right?

Okay, people leave your comments at direct of the bat. But he thinks the divisions are dissolving. I would say probably directionally correct, but perhaps not the utopian image that it seems to be in Bundaberg is universal. But we'll see. We'll see. I'm Brisbane. I'm Brisbane.

I'm getting data from Brisbane as well now. Okay, all right. But so in any case, you know, as we said, not too much objections in general there. But let's see where it goes from there. Do you see this video? There's this girl doing a hair, really pretty girl. And she's saying her or her friends are stealing, going into sweet green and stealing finance bro's salads, looking at the name on the order that they preordered, looking at the name, finding them on Instagram, messaging them and saying,

hey, so sorry, looks like I accidentally picked up your salad. And in a desperate attempt to try and talk to them, there's another video, famous video of a girl party dress, she must be mid-20s, blonde hair, fully done up, big boobs, walking down the street going, I just want one guy to buy me a drink tonight. There's another one of a girl walking through Central Park, big naturals, no bra, skin glowing and she calls it out herself. She's like, what does a girl need to do? To get some attention from where here I am again?

looking nice in Central Park, ready for nobody to come and talk to me. And there is a bit I see in guys and I see sort of in myself this sense of, well, what did you think was going to happen? When you said that the male gaze is toxic, when you said that any attention from a man to woman, 20% of Gen Z say that a man approaching a woman in person always are usually constitutes harassment. Men already had approach anxiety. What do you think the pickup artist movement was about? like what was it about?

It was about overcoming approach anxiety, the single scariest thing that a man ever has to do because rejection feels like fucking existential pain. This is the end of my genetic lineage. So, you know, Matt, there's a couple, I just want to say a couple of things quickly. Like, first of all, is like Chris, they're talking about the pickup artist movement.

And what was that about? What was that about, I would say, in general. That was about men who are feeling awkward in their own skin. and want to get laid and looking for answers in the wrong place. But Chris talks about it like everybody was into the pickup

work at what point and no, it's a very specific niche set of men who were into pickup artistry. It's not a universal experience that everybody went through a pickup artist phase.

And then on top of that, those videos that he's talking about on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, I seen one of them that he's referencing. I actually went and found it, right? but that one was very clearly re-itchbid. It was set up explicitly to appeal to those narratives.

Does Chris Riddinson not know how Instagram works? Like how, like that is, like if you take some bit of clickbait on Instagram and go, well, this is my barometer for how society works now. Like women in New York, when they want to meet a guy, what they're doing is, you know, especially if they're big naturals to use his phrase. As he kept mentioning. They go around without a bra and wander around Central Park waiting for men to approach them. And nobody will. Like, does he really think that's how it works in New York City now? But also, Matt, like, just looking at the endless amount of nightclub fight videos that are pieceded on Twitter and whatnot as well.

It looks to me like people are approaching each other and making out and making bad decisions about. clothes to wear and stuff. And like, I just don't buy it. I don't buy it at all. That now, oh, women can walk around and nobody's going to pay them a couple of it. Nobody's going to pay them any attention if they dressed up and wandered around. They're like flaunting themselves. Nobody, everybody, all men are two or three. Like, shut up. That is not true. It's Chris taking that TikTok Instagram, reage beat video as indicative that like, oh, not. I'm in, don't approach women at all and stuff. And you're like, no, that is designed to like provoke you to feel like that.

And it's just that he doesn't seem to factor in that this is algorithmically fed to him. This is why I keep citing my personal experience, even though I know all of the problems with the anecdotal evidence and the cultural specificity of Bundaberg, as you call it, and Brisbane, so on. But I mean, it is like, it may be non-representative, but it's far more representative than some bullshit viral thing on Instagram. Right. Like, I've been. I've spent a lot of time in the United States.

I've spent a lot of time in other countries, including Japan. And I know that actually, you know, there's lots of little quirks. But basically, you know, lots of things are pretty similar everywhere. And so it's just the kind of reality check. I'm just going to point out because I can already hear the email. is flooding in. I know that the rates of like lack of sex and stuff in Japan. I understand this. Okay, that's not my position is not. Nothing has changed. There's no things. I am saying just that the notion that no man is approaching a woman anymore because of like me too and stuff. No, no,

that's not. And the sexist stuff and all that kind of thing is a lot more to do with norms around work and like the bigger, bigger issues, right? The contraceptives being the number one killer of large families. But yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, all right. Anyway, so what did Scott Galloway have to say to that? Or did they move on?

Something rather moderate. There was a little bit of, I think, sometimes women feeling like they could grab virtue by being victims. I think some of the claims were a little bit over the top. However, that was the minority. The majority of the claims were simple. It was powerful men who had been for too long told that they could do or say anything with no repercussions. Just to clarify, I think Me Too was an important redress to precisely that problem.

I think that it was necessary, but it sought to sanitize the toxic elements of male behavior. And instead, it just sterilized all. So what's happened is the following. So the question is, how did we deal with it? And my view is the following. I've had, I've started several companies. I've been to eight weddings of people who met at my work, right? So the idea that they both were exactly the same amount of attractive to each other

and their lawyers met in the lobby and negotiated a coffee, people figure it out. And if you don't know the difference between harassing somebody and expressing interest while making them feel safe, you've got bigger problems. but my attitude was we used to have socials and we'd have alcohol and the HR person, whenever I hear an HR person saying we've got to discourage relationships at work, it's almost someone who's already found their spouse. Yeah, I'm actually on that last point, I'm totally on board with it. I think there's far too much prudery around corporate HR and all of that bullshit. I think there should be alcohol at work and, you know, socials and things like that.

Yeah, but that's a minor point. No, that is like a point that a lot of people have argued, right? Like Ted, Slingerland, Mickey. And it's like, in general, Matt, they're men of our generation who enjoyed drinking. And I think it's worth noting that like in general, Gen Z, right, the current generation, they just don't drink as much anymore. No, no. And yet they somehow managed to hook up just without alcohol.

Amazing. It blows by Gen X mind. that's even possible. I know. More power to them. It's healthy, I guess. I guess it's a positive change. But the other thing I'll say, too, is that there is, like,

and I think this is totally in line with Scott Galloway's point there. And, you know, Chris Williamson, to his credit, is not, was not against the disclaimer. He does the disclaimer. And again, this is a bit of a personal revelation as well. But, you know, in my family, there have been women connected to me who have been actually targeted in terms of predatory older men, not that much older, but have targeted them with the view to exploitation. And it came close to, like, call him a police type thing, but it was sorted out in other means.

So, like, it still happens, right? This is after me too, right? So I guess my point here is that, like, lots of things are true at the same time. There is predatory stuff going on and, you know, it's not gone. It's still happening. There are probably insecure guys who are worried about seeming creepy in various situations. I'm sure that's true. Everything I said about the normal, healthy stuff is still going on and young people are still

finding ways to meet up in perfectly innocuous and healthy ways. That's going on too. I mean, you know, it's all happening. So the only thing that I would actually push back on is just having this blinkered, cartoonish, kind of one-size-fits-all, right? Like this sort of sweep your hand and say, like, it's all like this. It's all very simple. And, you know, this is not.

Like, you know, it's a big complex mess, just like it's always been. Talking about human behavior, culture, sociology, and, my God, human sexual preferences. So, you know, there's no way it's never not going to be a mess. Yeah, yeah. You know, I think the thing that I appreciate is just like the kind of notion that it takes that, yes, people still meet and get married. Right. Like, it does happen.

And actually, despite the dominant narrative about Me Too, in these spaces being that it overreached and it harms society and stuff, Scott Calloway there kind of reframing like, yes, look, there was cases where Pinko went too far, but overall it was necessary and it was the majority of cases were valid. And it's just that energy where he's constantly moderating. He's moderating. So we have to give him points for that, I think. You know, you can quibble with him and have a different.

opinion, that's fine. But I think you can't accuse him of having an unreasonable or painting a simple picture. It's mainly, I'm sorry, it's Chris Williamson. I think he always seems to be reaching for that. But yes, the grievance. Yeah, just the grievance. Like it's all, what fresh new hell, it's all terrible, and it's all unfair, and we should all feel very aggrieved. I mean, Scott Galloway isn't leaning into that. No, no. Well, Matt, this next set of clips. It might be the part that I dislike the most on Scott Callow A's

half, so let's see why we feel about them after these clips. I say jokingly, semi-jokingly that any man under the age of 30 should be able to walk into any room and know if shit got real, they could kill and eat everybody or outrun them. You should be really strong and

really fast. Like, as someone who just turned 60, and has been working out my whole life, I just marvel and miss that young ripped really strong really fast dude you could recover from workouts within hours and do it again it just felt great to be able to bang out 25 strict pull-ups it just felt fucking awesome to feel like if if i broke out at a bar i could step in between the two and have the physical presence to de-escalate that made me feel really masculine and if you feel if you think

about the most masculine jobs in the world, cop, firemen, military, at the end of the day, what they do is they protect. What do you think about that, Tickma? I know you were often, I've been in a bar with you and I saw you just sizing everyone up. If they attack Chris, could I defend them?

Can I take this guy? I mean, the interesting thing about that claim is that so like if there are two men who are about to fight and you can physically dominate both of them, right? Then that's something that only one third of men could potentially

No, my, everyone needs to do it. Because that's like saying everyone needs to be. Everyone needs to be the best. I know the logic. It's like everyone should have spotted being above media and intelligence. I know. It did strike me as that because I'm like, well, who are the people, who are you talking to are the ones that get dominated in this encounter?

Right. Presumably, they're also in the audience here. I think the answer is people like me. Not that I would be sizing someone up in a bar for a fight. I mean, I just, there's a lot of this talk, Chris, and I just, none of it jails with me in terms of my life experience. Like, I don't think I'm a particularly, I don't think I'm a particularly, non-masal girly white. I don't know. I'll maybe a little bit.

There's a little, a little bit, you know, you mistake me being debonair. You mistake that. Oh, yeah, that's right. Being a feminine. I'm just feminine air. Deviner, yeah. you're just cosmopolitan. Incredibly.

The thing that struck me was, I mean, Gallow, Scott Galloway is quite tall and like might be muscular. Like in my image of him, he's not this like, like,

he's like, he's like, he was in the past life or maybe he still is. He was Chris and it felt great. It felt really great. Yeah. Yeah.

Like the bit that got me, a little bit about this. He sounds like a big dude or a tall dude or something, right, from other descriptions I've killed. But this is sort of short man syndrome. You know, like, isn't this what people like myself, who are five foot nine? Yeah.

I was going to say, you know, you wouldn't know what it's like to be a tall man, Chris, but it feels pretty good. It feels pretty good. I don't die, the one that's supposed to be, like, trying to compensate it for my five-foot-ninerie. I don't know. It just like the notion that yes, it's good

and people like to imagine themselves being, you know, John McLean or whoever like, you would like me when I'm angry. Right. Like a beating up the police in the canteen or whatever. Sure. Like I guess that this is a common, you know, representation.

People like it. But it's just like it's weird. to hear it from 50 year olds. Yeah, like, well, he's significantly older than Matt, and he's a university professor, and he's, is like me in many respects, I think, and it is, it is weird. I mean, it just doesn't gel with me either. Like, okay, let me put it like this, right? The last time I was, there was ever any actual fighting going on, I was in high school

or younger, maybe primacy. You were running away. I would run away, that's right. That's because that's a smart thing to do. But, like, it just doesn't come up. Like, I have dealt with, you know, the occasional agro situation and always the correct response. If you're dealing with an agro weirdo in public, right, is to de-escalate, become an authoritative and exit the situation. It's not to be like a Marine sergeant and get a hole in their face.

Like, that's the wrong, that's never the right idea, right? It's not the right idea in a country where people are armed with guns. It's not the right idea in Australia either. Like, it really is. Or knives. Oh, knives. Yeah. And look, the bit that this reminds me off is this is something I hear all the time.

I mean, you've heard it too, Matt. And people who it's surprising do hear it come from. Because you remember Eric Weinstein was talking about this? Like how he gets in fights or he's had tussles with his meal friends. But afterwards, after they brawl, they're able to feel closer to Keller and stuff. And you're like, Eric? Right? Like, and.

I mean, there is this thing that whenever you spend time around the monosphere, they're often talking about like the ability to physically protect this. And none of them are doing that, right? They're not UFC fighters. They're not like people that are out there, like, you know, fist fighting people off. No, I think the vast majority of people don't do it. And the people who do it are, you know, are not functional, right? Like the people who are getting into fights or, you know, like if you're responding to aggression with aggression back from a rando in public, that's almost always the wrong decision unless, right?

Like, have you ever, for you personally, Chris, as an adult, right? And once you're an adult, not at school or something like that, 20 or something, right? I don't know, I'd say 20, right? Okay. Like, do you think there were a situation which did call, not you being students? stupid and making a big mistake. Oh, right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So we're excluding a broad, a broad category of your behavior.

But like, it's not, it's not a necessary thing. It's not an advisable thing to do, right? Yeah, it hasn't come up. But like, I'm glad you added in. Because there are things which I'm going to go out. They're mostly my fault. And they're associated with alcohol, right? But they weren't good. Like, they weren't good. No. And then not in respect. But look, to add to his. defense here. Isn't he more talking about, like, rather than actually doing

it, just the imagination? Because he's dealing with the fact that, like, he's, he's talking about, you know, becoming weaker and older. Yeah, I mean, so that's slightly different thing, I guess, isn't it? But, I mean, if you're talking about imagining yourself. Sizing up everyone in the bar. Yeah, and being, being the biggest,

toughest guy in the bar, then, well, you know, I guess that it's, If that brings you pleasure, I can understand that. But it's still, it's not a necessary or laudable thing. I mean, the bit of that makes sense is it feels good to be fit, right? As you know, I'm very proud of myself. I've been swimming a lot. I've been swimming, you know, 1.5 to 2 kilometers four times a week for the last few months.

And I feel an awful lot better for it. I certainly is not going to help me confront men in bars. But it's definitely going to make me feel better. Yeah, if there's a flash flood. that's right that's right i can outrun the sharks but uh you know so it feels good to be to obviously be fit and healthy but that's that's not what they're talking about right it's it's some sort of thing that i think is in the realm of fantasy and movies i think that is what we're talking about yeah yeah and it just it comes up a lot so like i i think dare i say ma it's more of an issue

for people that feel that they have to like performatively display their masculine the people that are particular, you know, it's that general thing about if you're constantly thinking about all the people that you can fight when you go into your bar, you're not, you're not like focused on the right thing. But there's another take which kind of illustrates the same way of thinking. And I think this is like I said, this is when Scott is being bad when he falls into this kind of thinking. So listen to this.

This is not all terrible advice, but maybe you'll see what got my goat, so to speak. Express friendship with men more impressive than you. Probably the most important thing for a young man is to surround yourself with, at least in the short term, men who you perceive as being higher character are more successful than you. You know that whole thing. You are the average of your five closest friends, so try and manicure your friends. I think you're the average of the five podcasts you listen to the most. That's it? Yeah.

That's where you are? Yeah. But take risk. Go up. They did a study on kids in high school. Who are the most popular? It's not the best looking. It's not the best athletes.

It's the kids who like the most other people. The kid who says, Bob, great job at the football game. And it's comfortable saying that. Lisa, what a great outfit. And congrats on killing it on the math. Sounds like agency is a lot sort of intentionality leaning in, making it happen. Being confident, being super nice, being, you know, really liking, really liking others. So when I think of friends, like expressing friendship, the first thing when I'm coaching these young men,

I don't tell them to go up to the hottest woman in the writing class and ask her out. I say, find a dude that you think's kind of cool and has his shit together and see if he wants to grab a beer or something. Because, first off, it will really help you romantically. The best move on a date is to have a first date. Have a coffee, maybe solo. But the highest target-rich success environment is if you can get a group of friends together that are very impressive. and invite a romantic interest. And if she sees you have impressive friends, right,

she's going to be into you. Pre-selection. Especially if there's a girl or two in there as well. Yeah, like a group, a cool posse, there is no bigger turn on for someone than look at who this guy rolls with. They're fun, nice people. And they're successful and they're high character.

I think the nice point is a really interesting one. be. So which part of that did you like and which part of it did you not like, Chris? I don't mind the part which is, you know, giving people advice to try and hang around with people that they respect and that are nice. I often find with podcast advice like it's so funny. Now, don't hang around with terrible hardened criminals that are, you know, bad people. Don't go hang around with Andrew T.

But some people need to hear it, Matt. Maybe some people in Chris Williamson's audience in particular need to hear these kind of advice. So, yes, try to hang around with people that are nice. The bit I don't like is this kind of evil psych streaming. Yeah, it's an instrumental tactic. Of showing your quality, like a chance for the captain of gonder to show his quality. Like, right? No, like, if that happens,

if that is your reason like it never wants my life I can say this with all honesty never once in my life did I meet someone and think I'd really like to hang around with him so other girls and women would look at me

and think he hangs around with him wow like now I need to get to know who that guy it's like it's such a weird like it's not only a unreasonably and stupid thing do. Like, I don't think it's real, right? No, it's just like as a tactic. In the monosphere,

it might be real. People might do this. Like, I saw, you know, Andrew Teart and Sneakle and all going to a club together in a limousine and they were doing them for social media. I think they might actually be the imagining, like that kind of calculation. But no, it's not a normal. It's just, it's a weird way to imagine that, right? And like, I guess I'm trying to steal them on it. They're arguing that they're giving advice for men who don't have these intuitions naturally that they should hang around with people that are nice and good and admirable because it reflects well on you.

But I mean, if you're at the stage where you need to be told that, I think you've got big problems. You get serious issues. And I think the problem with this, as advice to these hypothetical, naive and vulnerable young guys is that they take it as instrumental advice, right? Yeah. It's not like choose good, decent people who you respect a lot and hang around with them,

which is great advice. But it's no, do that because that's going to... It'll get you late. It'll get you late. It's like, no, that's not why you should be doing that. And remember earlier he said, I mean, this is the thing where Scott earlier said, don't do nice things because you're trying to impress a girl or whatever. It should be you do the nice thing because that means you're a nice guy and people like nice

guys. And he does say this here as well, but like, you know, somebody who's complimenting their friends and stuff, that's the one that people like. So it's just that kind of mixed messaging. And I feel it's because he's angling the advice to Chris Williamson's audience a little bit. Yeah, I do get the feeling he's just a bit too flexible there in terms of. going with the flow on this thing. Like, I think if you were I pulled him up on it, he would totally agree with what we just

said. Yeah. But that's again a different context. I mean, the bit about it, which I think is a little nugget of truth buried in there, which is that I think he was very right to say that the most popular people are the ones that are sending out good vibes and like genuinely like other people and are generally being positive and supportive and encouraging and fun loving. to them, right? It's not about their intrinsic qualities. So not being the most smart or the most

clever, the most, you know, funny or the most good looking or the strongest, right? You know, the most popular young people, just like popular adults, tend to be the ones that are giving out all the good vibes. And yeah, that's something I've definitely noticed in my life. Well, we'll pivot to his specific masculine the advice which is kind of broadening things off but but just before it Matt since we're in a bit of a negative zone speak for yourself mate I'm determined to see the sunny side the positive besides I said well I'm going to play another claim which I fact checked and surprise surprise slightly wrong so here we go this is scott making this one especially young people who have a more risk aggressive brain we've sequestered them we've connected shareholder value

with enraging them and sequestering them from each other. So you not only have 40% of pubs, and this is your business, 40% of pubs and nightclubs in London have closed down since COVID. Remote work is a big thing. People aren't going to church as much. So where do people come together, demonstrate excellence, and then they have the deepest pocketed companies with Godlike technology trying to convince them.

No, no, no, no. Don't spend more time looking at someone's face and talking to them. Spend more time looking at a screen. Come to talk to us. We are, I feel as if we're evolving a new species of asocial, asexual males. We're literally planning our own extinction. Well, think about this. Who does that leave room for?

It leaves room for, yeah, sure, some guys that have got very holistic, integrated, emotionally attuned, like escape velocity from that. But it also leaves an awful lot of room for the residual psychopaths and sociopaths and narcissists. and guys that blow through boundaries. So as you select out the cinnamon roll men who would have made great husbands if they'd just been given a bit of encouragement, what you're left with are kind of the Viking raiders that would have been useful at Lindisfarne

in fucking 800 AD, but maybe a little bit less now. So, Matt, according to Scott Galloway, 40% of pubs in England have closed since COVID. No, if that were true, Matt, that would be a genocide of pubs in the UK, right? That's not true. That's not true.

I looked into it, right? And the bit that is true is that nightlife establishments and entertainment, mainly clubs, have decreased, right, since COVID. So there's been a decline depending on where you look about it between 20 and 30% decline. But this is where we go to demonstrate excellence, Chris. Is it the night clubs? Well, Matt, but the reality, like, this is the thing.

So he said pubs, right? He said pubs there. And this is what got me. Because I was like, if that were true, that would mean almost one out of two of pubs that I went to at university are now closed, right? That's not true. All of the pubs that I've attended are still there. And I looked at the figures, okay? Well, you're busy demonstrating excellence on the climbing,

at the climbing gym, aren't you? That's right. I've changed. I've changed. I don't know what, at my local pub in my little town, in the Australian countryside, there's no one there demonstrating excellence.

I can't consider that. Anyway, go on. Let me get my figure out, let me get my figure. So from the woke outlet, the sun, the sun, they had an article bemoaning

that, you know, six pubs closed a week last year where 4,500 jobs lost. But even they admit the number, and so this is from 2024, okay, the number of English and Welsh pubs fell to 45,345. Oh dear, my. Oh, dear.

They're almost all gone. What was the number in 2019, free COVID? 47,613. So, yes, there's been closures. And this is England and wheels, we're talking about here, as opposed to the 40% closure that he's suggested. So it's just a thing where every time I look at the figure, it's wrong and it's a hyperbolic thing.

But I know that they would say, well, yes, but nightclubs and nightlife has declined. You're like, yes, that's true. But also young people today drink glass, right? They're doing all their stuff. There was no bouldering walls in Belfast when I was young. That's right. These shifts were always changing.

In fact, I saw a thing about the evolution of pubs in the UK. You know what I mean? They've changed a lot since the 1950s, right? Serving food. Yeah, all kinds of things have gone on. And it's not like back in the 1950s, your local pub was this like, you know, perfect, shiny example of how things ought to be, right? It wasn't. And yeah, like if I think of my kids who are down there at uni, man, they socialize a lot.

They really do. I've seen the photographs, crazy parties. They've been nightclubbing like a couple of times. but it's not very popular. It's not as popular as when we were young, right? So it's just like there's changing things that are popular. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're just sitting at home glued to their phones, right? But I just want to highlight the magnitude of this mistake, right, the error here.

Because 47,000 pubs before COVID, now 45 or 44,000, right? That's not 40%. So it's like even if you were to triple it. Isn't it like 2% 47 to 45? Yeah, whatever. Whatever it is. My point is it's not 40. We're not getting to 40.

Maybe four. Maybe four. Yeah. I hear you. Well, look, the general pattern that we've seen is something like that is that there'll be a statistic quoted, you know, research shows, whatever. it'll be wildly overblown. And that statistic will be picked up often by Chris Williamson as an indication of just like a blanket statement, like black and white, right? So basically we've shut down.

Not only all pubs, Chris, but all social contexts in which people could naturally mix and naturally to demonstrate excellence or demonstrate whatever to each other. And now the public sphere is just dominated by these psychopathic. alpha males. And this is where the in-cell, you can see the incel influence bleeding through here a little bit, right? All the nice guys are at home being neurotic on their phones. Now out in the world, there's just a bunch of these women that are preyed on by a small number of psychopathic alpha males. And it's just like none of that is supported by the statistic that was quoted. I know, I know, Matt. But you know, you talked about arenas that they demonstrate excellence and, you know, we're talking about how they've contracted, there's issues.

You can't do it in the church community anymore. There are some surprising areas where you could demonstrate excellence, or at least Chris Williamson has some suggestion. So let's just hear this out of the box for it. I had a conversation with Dr. Robert King, and he does this really great evolutionary psychology assessment of the female orgasm. Is it a spandrel? Is it a byproduct?

Is it pointless? Is it a selection criteria? What's it there for? It's interesting. It's not needed for conception. And he did something that no one's ever done when talking about this. He's very pro-woman. He did something that no one's ever done.

And he basically says the female orgasm is another selection criteria. It's another hoop that men need to jump through. And it's determined by sensitivity and dominance and skill, basically. like thrust skill. And I was like, well, you know, this seems very sort of judgmental in a way. It seems exclusionary. It seems like kind of magical as well. There's like all of this stuff that you kind of don't control.

Like dominant sensitivity, interpretation, as you said before, the attractiveness of the person that you're doing it with. And he just said, yeah. Yeah, it is. It is. And I was that he went on for a little bit longer. The point was he called out the fact that this game. is not rigged, but it is difficult to play and it is biased.

And I think when you're talking about, hey, guys, you do need to be a provider. And if you are not, you're going to be swimming uphill. What do you think about that, Matt? It's a hypothesis. Yeah, it's a hypothesis. Yeah, this is why people don't like evolutionary psychology. It's just a thing. At an arena, you can demonstrate competence.

It's like a skillful. It's a selection criteria. And, you know. Whenever this comes up, I'm always reminded of my, of my gay brother. He's always regarded me as sexual cannon fodder and himself as a sexual ninja.

Maybe, so maybe, what does he know about the female orgasm? Well, he would say, he would not be interested in that, I don't think. I don't want to talk about it either. I mean,

I don't know, what did he connect to it to? So, after all of that about men demonstrating excellence and the skill, its skill at promoting orgasms, then he went to men have to demonstrate that they're a provider, a financial provider. Yeah, because I think his argument is, God, reconstructing his argument, that there are just inequalities in men's inherent debility to deliver orgasms, which is a selection criteria for females.

It is. Let's take it for granted that. That's what it is. And because of that, you could be, you know, like, Amanda, just for no fault of your own. You don't have those abilities. You're part of that. You're just bad at that. You got bad at that.

So you need another arena to excel in, which can be. Oh, I see. Provided, financial. I think that's like, I think that is the logic. Let's not even analyze it. But we could just leave it there. It can just let it go. It's just an item there.

It's magical in its own way, Matt. It's as they say. So there you go. I thought it was a skill issue. It's about thrust frequency and, I mean, it is, but they seem to imply that that is not something that's within. I mean, obviously you can learn the skills, Matt.

Obviously, you can improve, but there's a zone of latent ability, you know? Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Well, anyway, all good stuff to think about. You hear a lot of, things in the podcast world. You hear a lot of things. Okay, so now let's turn to the final

wrong, which is, you know, Scott's advice for young men. He's been giving it for right, but this is like the kind of condensed version of it. So let's see how it holds up. So just to be equal opportunity blamers, we're blaming technology. We're blaming corporation, society, men who have you, blame you, yeah. We've been seduced. We've seduced them or they've fallen victim to this notion they don't need to take risk. If you look at media online, basically, as far as I can tell, TikTok and Reels and the media have basically told women

one strike and you're out as a man. Celebrates, you are a beautiful independent woman. You don't need that man. Walk right out on them. And let me just, just spoiler alert, we're deeply flawed. Very few of us are going to get it right. We're going to forget to open your door.

We're going to maybe forget to order you the Uber. We're going to maybe not make eye contact with the waiter every time. And there's the basic zeitgeist of online is like constantly telling women to exit the relationship. That if he doesn't meet the following thing, everything is a red flag. And so it's sort of, it's sort of, okay, media's telling men, don't be that guy, don't be a creep, come over here, online gaming of porn. And with women, you're queen and you deserve better. And the advice I give to men, I ask some very basic questions of men and dating.

The first thing I say is, would you want to have sex with you? Right? Do you take care of yourself? Do you work out? Do you know how to dress? And if you don't have a dress, find a woman or a gay man who can dress you. Do you have a plan? You don't need to be a baller, but do you have a plan?

Are you kind? Do you have a practice of being kind to people? Would you want to be with you? Yeah. I guess once again from Scott, like a bit of a mixed bag there. It's back, yeah. Yeah, didn't really like where it was going to begin with. But then towards the end, it's like, again, like you said before.

It's Jordan Peterson. Yeah, it's kind of, you know, as you said correctly, maybe there's a lot of people in Chris Williamson's audience who need to hear fundamentally. Like get a shower. Yeah, that's right. Like, you know, just nicely try to be a decent person. Don't try to trick people into. Yeah.

But the end was, the end was okay. Right? Yeah. I thought so. You know, be nice, be somebody that people like want to. This is the kind of thing throughout this conversation. It is the same with Jordan Peterson.

Be responsible. Don't be rude. Be nice to people. Contribute to society. Like, yes. Yes. I feel like even the telitubbies give you this advice.

Well, you know, whatever. Again, maybe some people need this to be spoon fed. to them. This is where Chris Williamson takes this, by the way, Matt. Quote from The Guardian, where young women are encouraged to seek out positive role models for their own good, young men are frequently encouraged to seek out positive role models so that they treat women better. This asymmetry between women are able to look after women and men also should look after women in this way. There's a reason, I think it makes sense, at least from a

supply and demand perspective, about why it is that women have said, well, his red flag culture, he doesn't meet the criteria because the likelihood is that there will be a line of available men coming in after talking about men's icks for women almost doesn't work because implied in you have an ick is you also have options whereas realistically it's like hey dude fucking be grateful with what you've got right like hold on to that thing because there might not be another one coming and this has been true for pretty much all of time what is it twice as many female ancestors than male ancestors uh 80 percent of women reproduced only 40 percent of men yeah yeah yeah So you go, okay, get fucking, whoa, whoa, whoa, you struck the lottery.

Like 40%, it's not like great. But the reality is, I mean, it's a harsh thing to say. We're disposable, right? Have you seen this? I learned this. I couldn't wait to drop this stat on you. In the trolley problem, 88% of participants would sacrifice a man over a woman. Yeah, but it's evolutionary because if you have a village of 100 people, 50 men, 50 men,

40 men go off and die on war. 10 very happy men. Village survives. 40 the women gone, which goes out of business. I have a friend who has a farm and he has all these deer, hundreds of, I don't even call them Do's, female dears, and they're like, I need some stags to keep the thing alive. All you need is two or three tags.

You need one very, very well-stabmed. You just need two or three of them, and it'll take care of it. So we're disposable. Yeah, it's interesting. Like, I never really thought about it that much, but I didn't notice until this episode, just how much sort of grievance is infused into Chris William. Mimson's stuff.

Like he always takes it in that direction. Like this is how, this is how women are wrong. This is how their priorities are wrong. This is how, you know, it's unfair. We are being discriminated against.

And most men aren't being treated, given a fair sheik. And you're not, like even if you get the chance to meet a woman, you know, you're probably, you don't have any chance to meet anyone else. Yeah.

Yeah, she's going to ditch you for someone better at the first available opportunity. Like it, like whether you, to what degree people will agree with or not, you can't dispute that it is a grievance. It is aggrievance with women. And look, there are nuggets of truth and all of the evolutionary psychology stuff, but where the big

problem with it is is taking it as this is a prescriptive guideline to give you insights into how the modern world works. And that's where things are really wrong. Like, it may well be true in a simple genetic sense that you only need one male lion for the pride to keep going. Right? And the young male lines are kind of excluded and whatever and have to go and prove themselves and take great risks in order to... Yes, there's truth in sort of mammalian basic biology. But you've got to be super cautious in just translating that holosolus over to, okay, this is how the dating environment looks for young men and women in Australia or the UK or the United States today. Because it's pretty tenuous, hey. I'm not a blank statement. latest, I'm a big believer in the biological substrate and I have no problem in principle with there being, you know, big behavioral differences in some respects between men and women.

But I just don't agree with the prescriptive tone and the way in which they are applying these evo-sycifactoids. Would it surprise you to learn, Matt, that that figure that they're citing is not well-supported. This is the theme. This is the theme of the show. Yeah, it's an extrapolation, which would be at the extreme ends of possible distributions. And it's only in general, they're kind of extrapolating from genetic studies, right, about the relative bottlenecks in populations at certain times, certain places.

So, like, you can go check if you want, you know, listeners, go check on your AIs or do targeted searches. and you'll find out that the ratios are not what they are suggesting here. And I'm taking for granted. And you hear there as well, Matt, the thing that caught me is Chris Williams, I was so happy to say, oh, I've got a stat. I got to figure that I really want you to hear 80% of people, right? You know, like about the trolley problem. God knows where that's from.

But like, it wouldn't surprise me that in a direct thing where there's male and women comparisons, you would get like a stronger, select. for meals, right? But it doesn't relate to all the things that they're talking about, about men being more willing to sacrifice and all I can think. And also, Mike, can I just note that we have heard this comparison before about like in order to like repopulate, you know, the limitation is the number of females, right?

This was what Stefan Molniew was talking about if you remember as well. Right. Like it was the same, Richard. And I know, it's not as creepy here. when Scott introduces it and it is like you said it is like mammal biology and evolutionary things and stuff like that but it's it's just so often invoked this kind of presentation that justifies moving to these big extrapolations which are not worded that like meals are just completely regarded as as a close to world not in most societies in history actually meals have been held up quite

quite highly yeah yeah that's right if you you do a bit of cross-cultural analysis a bit of China's one child policy? China's one child policy? Yeah, which were the, what kind of children tended to not survive infancy when you had to just pick one? That's, you know, like this is a, it's a cultural constant, but all of that is disregarded because Chris Bidimson has found a stat about a trolley problem or something. Therefore, women are more highly valued than men. And it's like, this stuff only works if you disregard everything else that you know.

Yeah, I know. So yeah, like it's not that there aren't factoids in there that might have grains of truth of them. It's just where it serves as the leverage. It serves as the foundation for a massive leap in terms of a prescriptive claim about how the world is and how the world ought to be in 2026 today. Well, okay. So let's get back to the Scott because I think this bit might be a little bit better and highlight where Scott is differentiating himself from some of the other monastery of people.

You describe manhood as something that we solve for. What's broken in the current equation? Well, there's a general notion that it's a problem, that womanhood and femininity is a feature, and manhood and masculinity are a bug. And it's been really unproductive to conflate toxicity with masculinity. And I've been saying there's no such thing. There's violence, there's cruelty, there's oppression.

Those are the exact opposite of masculinity. And, you know, I've got this book coming out. You know, I try to, I think all young people need a code. And that is, and I don't think I had it. And I think I really struggled to it. And some people get a series of principles that help you make or guide you around the 100 decisions you have to make every day, right? How you treat others, how you treat yourself,

what to do when you face a difficult decision. And some people get that code from their family. Some people get that code from the religion, from the military. You can even get it from work. I think the first code I got was from Morgan Stanley, like around professionalism and how you treat other people. But I think there's a lot of young men that are what I'll call codeless. They don't have anything to hold on to.

And I'd like to think that masculinity for a lot of young men could serve as a great code, but we need an aspirational form of it, right? That was more an introduction to the code. It wasn't the details of the code yet. Okay. You need a code, Matt. some people need a code. Some people might not be as lucky as you and I.

I don't even know what masculine is at this point. I've totally lost track. Well, you're going to hear, right, the thing is, Ma, it's not toxic, okay? It's okay to be a Ma'am. Just do you bear that in mind, okay? You got that? You're all right as you are, Matt. I think so, too.

I think so. Okay, now let's hear the details. And the three kind of legs of the stool are one provider. I just think in a capitalist society, men are always going to be disproportionately evaluated on their economic viability. That doesn't even need to be a baller, but you need to be responsible, you need to make some money. You need to show a certain level of discipline that you can make money, save money, and be responsible and potentially provide. Now, sometimes that means getting out of the way of your partner who's better at that whole money thing and taking responsibility at home. That's also, I think, a form of masculinity.

Challenging one to thread. Very challenging one to thread. Well, as I said that, I even thought I'm doing what you say I do. I'm acknowledging the other side. 75% of women say economic viability is important in a mate. I think it's 90%. I mean, you've seen the stats. If a woman loses her job, there's no change in the likelihood of divorce.

If a man loses their job, it's like a 50% increase. ED drugs go way up. Yeah, 50% increase use in erectile dysfunction medication. There's just no getting around it. What I tell young men, you've got to be economically viable. I'm not going to try anymore. I'm not going to mention about the stats. I mean, when you're mentioning stats and saying,

oh, there was a figure of 70%, I think it's 90. It wasn't even matter. It doesn't even matter. Just a body's that just got inflated to the dollar 20%. Yeah, it's purely decorative. What we may as well trade it as such. Yeah. So first thing manned the provider,

and Scott said that was actually a nuanced position where it was like, that can also be recognizing that you need to support someone who's a better contributor. But Chris Williams said it did it like that. He was like, oh, difficult to thread that needle that that's providing where you take like the backseat to someone else. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I guess I don't like, like I'm kind of genuine when I say I don't even know what they're talking about anymore with respect to masculinity.

Is it is, is it what Scott Galloway says it is? Should we bother even looking at what the research says? or is it's just what it should be? Or like, is it what men do on average? Like, what is it? God, you're going to make me defend them. But, Matt, like, isn't he arguing that because if you look at what men and women in cross-cultural surveys and all those such things say is important when determining partners, things like resources

are something which tends to be more highly prioritized. I sure sure yeah yeah so so like I think when they do those sorts of studies in terms of what are what are valued and so on you know obviously some of it is very culturally contingent some lot of stuff that you'll see in Taiwan and China and someone is very different from the United States but some stuff you see in common is as you say being someone who's you know of good character and economically somewhat successful but some other things are a bit variable like these guys focus a lot on this kind of rah-rah, like, I don't know, marine cord type physical dominance masculinity.

But in other places it's kind of being like refined and sophisticated rather than being ultra-matcher, right? So like I suppose you can do descriptive studies in psychology and find aspects that are more common or valued in men like being self-aliant, being, less emotionally open, that kind of thing, which are neither necessarily good or bad. So, I don't know.

I guess I'm just genuinely mixed up. Like, is it prescriptive? Is it saying this is what men ought to be like? This is what they should be like, or this is what they are like. This is Scott Galloway's model for what, like, a positive masculinity looks like. So this is one pillar.

It's focus on providing economic stability. What are some of the other pillars just to refresh my memory? Well, I'm going to go to them. There's two more. There's three. It's a stool, Ma. But just need to insert one thing there because, look, we've got to call out what you're doing here, Matt, and what people are doing. Let's call out what's being played here.

It's like, look, just call out the game for what it is. Call it out that don't, what I really want is a masculine man. No, say it. Because if you say it, guys will go, all right. I know the game. As opposed to this weird, you want to have your cake and eat it too, you want to say it's not needed and then still select for it. I think for a lot of guys, it feels a little bit like being gaslit. It feels like reverse gaslighting.

And that I think is important to say if there is an imbalance, if it's like, yeah, guys, you're really going to have to work, you're going to have to work harder. The education system is more difficult for boys than it is for girls. We can just say it. We can just say that that's the case as opposed to having to do this land acknowledgement neutralization stuff of like trying to get the pH balance back to like someplace that it isn't in all areas

and there's other shit that the pH balance can be off on that and just calling that out too. It's like hey women, maternity leave it's really going to fuck fucking suck like it's really going to hurt and if you're in America it's going to hurt even more it's not good and unfair

we can just have that. Yeah the Like, I find comfort whenever I get into a discussion with someone and we're on different types of an issue, I find comfort in data. Do you? Yeah, Chris expresses doubt about that. I mean, they both find comfort in data. It's just the degree to which they're responsible in the approach that. Which little bits of shiny data are most appealing.

I know. It depends. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Hey, go, Matt. I'm just going out the game you're playing. Yeah, the game I'm playing. Well, as Chris says, when I'm allowed to talk about this, let's just be honest, right?

You know, women want to say what it is. Like, I just, like, I think Chris's conception of it is entirely different again, right? Like, it's something strongly involving a lot of physical fitness and a lot of sexual performance. Apparently, a lot of podcast listening. Yeah. I'd like to know, like, you know, another thing that Chris has emphasized is, you know, like there are these masculine professions. There are things in society that we absolutely need.

Yeah, men to do. And it is like, okay, let's put kickboxing there, maybe the Marine Navy SEALs. Well, there's female kickboxers. Yes, I'm sure there's female Navy SEAL. There probably isn't actually, but you know what I mean. But like 99.99% of jobs. Like, let's take podcasting. Like it's dominated by men, right?

There's a lot of men, including us, but also including Chris Williamson. I'd like to ask Chris, like, to what degree? does he need to be dominant? To what degree does he need to express these stereotypically male traits to do his job well? Because it sounds to me like he's kind of, he's doing the opposite. What are you talking about, Matt? To be a podcast, you've got to be a masculine, man, you've got to be tough. You got to, you know, certain Peterson, this is the arena of ideas. You know, men used to wrestle in the coliseums covered in oil, and now we wrestle mentally. in podcast studio.

Mentally, and rigorous. Yeah, I know. But I think they are thinking that to some degree, right? I think they are thinking, oh, you know, men are clearer thinkers and they're more, they can put their emotions aside and be whatever. And that's really important, not just in kickboxing and being a Navy SEAL, but also in these other professions.

And that's where the whole analogy or this whole metaphor of abstract masculinity breaks down, right? because clearly women are just as mentally rigorous, just as courageous, intellectually, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it's these analogies. Like it's working from intuition to these very broad breaststrokes. I just, yeah. Yeah, that's a hot take in the hell. Women can be intellectually courageous. Jeez.

What will you come up with next? Yeah, well, we'll go over there. But I think that's the implication in a. lot of this discourse. They don't go into a lot of detail about what these absolutely essential masculine traits are. And Scott Galloway kind of hedges his bets because he abstracts it to male energy and female energy and women can have male energy too. So it's sort of, well, what are we even talking about then, right? I think I'm equal amounts. I got an equal amount of feminine energy, got an equal amount of masculine energy. Even Scott Galloway said something like that. So in that

case, what the hell are we even talking about? I'll tell you, Ma, here's pillow number two. Anyway, you said provider is the first one. Provider. I just think a man needs a plan, a young man. I tell young man, assume you're going to need a plan that makes you potentially a viable provider for a family. Because whether a woman decides have kids or not, I think she's hardwired to be predisposed to an opportunity where she could have kids. The second is protector. I think think that it's important that men, you want to lean into your advantages. The male form, we celebrate, women can produce bones, organs, and give birth. That's singular. It's incredible. And I do think we celebrate it. Men under the age of 30, their flexibility, their speed, their denser bone structure,

their double-twitch muscle, and then you pour over it this amazing substance called testosterone. her own. Men, and you know, your example of this, I say jokingly, semi-jokingly, that any man under the age of 30 should be able to walk into any room and know if shit got real, they could kill and eat everybody or outrun them. You should be really strong and really fast. Like, like, I'm not disputing the fact that there are, that there are physical differences between men and women. No, there are. That's the position of this podcast. And as Scott says, they tend to go away as you reach our ages. Right? To some degree, to some degree.

That being said, I suppose it's fair to say that if in this hypothetical situation that actors are protector, that these evil people break into a, there's a home invasion, it's a terrible thing, they're threatening the family, right? I think probably my wife would expect me to take point in that scenario. I'd be the one with the brood stick cautiously going down the hallway, perhaps. But the thing is, this just doesn't happen. It's so statistically unlikely for most people most of the time. I just don't.

And also, you know, the vast majority of men and the vast majority of heterosexual women of both kinds do tend to hook up one way or another. Even the unmasculine ones, or the unfeminine ones, like they somehow find someone. And I just don't think that that was a big criteria for any of my partners to select me to go, well, look, he looks like he's someone who could protect me. in a zombie outbreak or, you know, like, it's just the premise of all of this, right? It's like Batman. Yeah, like we're living in some post-apocalyptic kind of survival situation. It just, I don't know. Well, we're just living in a world where, you know, Teakin movies are popular.

Yeah, like that's the thing. Like, I get it. Like, I know that this has cultural currency. And I know that it inhabits the fantasy type stuff, like the daydreams and stuff like that of men and women. And it's a big deal in movies. But one of the things that I've really noticed with American culture is they definitely mistake movies for reality. I just think he's maybe over-emphasizing this, you know, red and tooth and claw alpha male role. Yeah, although I do think he's right that there's a bigger emphasis on that when people.

are adolescents, right, younger whenever they're going through puberty and that kind of thing. Like people want to, you know, look good and that. But the reality is like in America and whatnot most people are overweight. Yeah, yeah, but I mean, okay, look, I'm not saying it couldn't factor in at all, right? Being a strong, dangerous-looking protector type guy. But think back to when you were young, Chris, like did people value both men and women, like someone just being good-looking and cool to choose another random criteria. Like being fashionable, being really hip and really cool. That's got

nothing to do with EvoSyke. And do you think that might even be more important than being muscle bound and the strong, silent, grim kind of protector? Look at you laying on your premises there. If it were, let's grant that like coolness

is a selection criteria. I know all about that. Okay? That's what I got my team. But wouldn't they say that that's a strong amount about saying that's not about evolutionary psychology because, you know, social status is not just physical. How much can you lift, right? If you're able to outsmart someone and do all these kind of things, this is also a social status or make people laugh.

I mean, they talk about this as well, is what I'm saying. Yeah, no, I think that I would be fine with that, right? it's just that there is a big focus, at least in this conversation with Chris Williamson. On muscles. On a particular version, right? Oh, right. Yes. Yeah.

Whatever male mate status for whatever a better phrase. And yeah, like I totally agree that a lot of that stuff when you drill down and now, if you analyze it psychologically, a lot of it does boil down to social status, right? Yeah, like whether it's economic, being hip and cool, like into the right music. A lot of them do have a grounding in social status. and that I would totally agree with. But that's the point, right? There's like a thousand different ways

to have social status in the modern world, including being a fancy-pants professor who's very nerdy and clever and so on. Like, there's a certain kind of social status there. It's pretty narrow. But I'm just saying there's lots of different ways to get there. It's very diverse. But in this conversation, there is a strong focus on it.

This is just a particular kind of masculinity that involves being very, emotionally reserved being the very the strong silent type who is is powerful and physically dominant and I get that's a certain you're looking at it might you're right here in front of you you get it you know what that kind of masculine looks like yeah it's not the only type I I agree it's not it's not the only criteria with with which society including women judge me well okay if I was going to netpick something as well just randomly I would say that the ability to produce bones and organs is not something that only women.

But I know what he means. He was talking about the unborn child, someone else's bones and organs. I just did like that, you know, women can produce bones. And like, I've got bones. I was thrilled for a minute, too, but I, I know what he meant. I know what he meant. So it's just a, you know, a funny way of cleaning it. But, well, okay, so we had, actually, this part,

leads into a little bit where Scott slightly psychoanalysis himself. And I think this is a little bit better than what you typically find in the My Wisdom podcast. So listen to this. The only time I have ever felt any real sense of peace, I struggle with more. And that is, no matter how much money I have, no matter how many social opportunities I have to be in something fabulous, I just went to a conference that had like seven of the ten wealthiest people in the world and former prime ministers and and i so sorry to hear that yeah but in the middle i'm like how do i get to allan and company i haven't been to that conference it's never enough for me i always want fucking more and when i was single i wanted by friday i was like how do i get to more fabulous brunches how do i get to an

environment with more interesting people how do i get to date hotter one or women. The next member's club. The only time I have ever felt sated like this is enough is occasionally I come home and my kids are sleeping, they're safe, in a wonderful home. My partner is happy and everything is safe. And I feel like I'm protecting. And my dogs come in and jump on me and I feel like, okay, this is like, or I'm watching a football game and my son's rolling and just instinctively throw their legs over mine, just instinctively, because they're so comfortable with me and they feel a certain sense of calm, that's the only time I've ever felt like, this is enough, this is it. I can't wait for them. And it's because, quite frankly, it comes from a protection

instinct. I understand the sentiment to you, right? Because like I've had many times where I've been with my family and, you know, my kids are around. They say they're very happy when I come back from a conference or whatever and it's it's nice right like you have these moments for family life is nice and you're kind of like how things are going well if that was a good day or whatever but i i do i find that mindset that he describes at the start about the yeah the status seeking yeah the grind toward incestance i mean that's the thing that i think he would acknowledge is somewhat pathological right yeah i get that a lot of people are like that i for whatever reason wasn't super like that when I was younger and certainly not now I've given up.

But the irony is that most of this episode has been encouraging young men to think about it like that, right? You need to up your status game, right? You need to get higher on that totem pole, be a strongest source of value and so on, rather than the sort of more mature kind of Scott Galloway that he described himself towards the end. I mean, when I was thinking about my, I actually made me reflect to a thought, well, you what sort of thing do I like in that regard? And what I really like is cooking for my family, right?

Like I'm making pad type tonight. Oh, cooking? I know, right? Man the provider. Well, I was going to say, is this stereotypically feminine? But Matt, are you grilling things as a barbecues, the fire involved? I do sometimes grill, but with patty, with pad tie, not so much. But, you know, you make everyone happy, right?

That's the thing. And everyone... Not when I cook. Hey, hey, your Irish, don't... Look, I've got my dishes. Don't say this after. Your Arias stew is the stuff that legends are made of. That's right.

We all agree about this. My wife is a better cook. That's the problem. She's at the bar high. And I'm, I'm, you know, that's the problem. Compared to many people, I'm fine. Okay? That's all.

Yeah. So, but yeah, I do think he acknowledges that it's pathological. Like, here's a little. little bit. Oh, by the way, you heard Chris Williamson saying, I can't be up for that. Just a little hint, Chris. Better get a move on. You got your nose-break chicken. Okay. So I just said, you know. I think he needs to work out more to, you know, increase his mate value. It's probably not high enough. He's, he did. What he should do is get himself into a situation where his partner gets pregnant in the first year of the PhD. That'll come much quicker than your entertainment, that all things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can relate to that. Well, so Scott continues. Men are supposed to be competitive. Men aren't supposed to feel stated. Society wouldn't have driven forward particularly quickly if we didn't have to. Yeah, and I struggle with that. I think a lot about addiction and that is continuing to engage in something, even though it's bad for your life. I'm addicted to money and I'm addicted to the affirmation of strangers.

And both those things get in the way of my life. Have you made peace with that? Well, just being cognizant of it. I think everybody has a certain level of addiction, and you just need to be aware of them so you can modulate them. I love alcohol and THC. I'm really good at it.

I'm great at alcohol. I'm horrendous at both, so you can take all of mine. Well, there you go, but you acknowledge it. I'm a much better version of me a little bit fucked up. I've gotten more out of alcohol than it's gotten out of me. I'm emotional in a good way. I'm friendly.

I'm funny. I'm outgoing. Sober I'm fairly intense and boring. I can't. There's bits of my death that I enjoy and bits that I don't. But I appreciate the self-awareness about like that he's addicted to money and the affirmation of strangers.

And like, you know, Chris Williamson is saying and he's like, well, it's just what it is what it is. Right. Like, yeah. And if it helps to be aware of it, which is true. Yeah. I don't know.

I always feel when somebody's like, I'm great on alcohol. I want to hear someone else say that. That's right. That's right. Like, I'm also. When I think so good. That's right.

Like, Scott, I'm an alcohol fan. I don't know if it... I'm fantastic. I am the life of the funny. It's so funny. Yeah.

Yeah. I sometimes forget how funny I've been. But yeah, it's better when someone else is saying... It's strange to hear someone saying. But it's the bit that I like Dr. Zid, you know, he's like, sober. I'm a bore.

Shit, you don't want to talk to me. whatever it was there were. I'm like, aren't you sober and all? We don't know that. We don't know that. Yeah. That's it.

And also to say that Scott recently came out, he's got plastic surgery, right? I think he had a fierce lift or some, you know, cosmetic surgery, right? And he was talking about it in this podcast, and he was talking about it saying, I don't know why I did this. Like he said he looks perpetually surprised now.

But he was also like, You know, I've got a family. I'm rich. I'm, you know, like, I'm not bad looking. But yet I went and got cosmetic surgery and, like, what the fuck am I doing? And, like, it's kind of, it's kind of a weird paradox where you acknowledge that it's like, it's kind of weird and, you know, why are you doing this, given all the things that you say? But then you do it anyway?

Like, I don't know. It's just an interesting thing where you're. I mean, he's not as bad, I would say, as like Sam Harris, who acknowledges they have some issue and then doesn't do anything to adjust for it. But it is just a kind of weird thing, I think, where you're telling people, like, be okay in your skin. Don't always be thinking and comparing yourself to other people. But then you, in your actual life, seem to demonstrate that you constantly want to make more money. You're constantly by, like, feeling dissatisfied and getting cosmetics. surgery to feel more neutral and whatnot. Like, I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, like he said, the interesting

thing about Scott is that he's, he's much, he seems much more self-aware than most. Like, can you imagine Constantine Kissen talking frankly about his motivations for getting cosmetic surgery? I, I can't. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you're right. You're right. That is, that's a difference. And it's a good difference that you can be like vulnerable and honest about it, right? Because you could go out cosmetic surgery never mentioned it. But it's just, I think, what, you know, what? And think, what, What makes me react to it a little bit is when I hear all the gurus on podcasts be like, I'm not going to promote conspiracy theories. And then they do, right?

But because they said, well, I'm not going to do that. People are like, well, but he didn't do that. Right. And it's it's kind of, I don't know, like having your kick in easy net syndrome. But I don't think Scott is doing the exact same thing here. So that's maybe just a global transference. but anyway Matt we're on the second pillar so we've got one more to go oh by the way on drinking just to finish that point so I stopped drinking fixed it fine done I can't get past thinking about money every day I'm done I've got enough but every day I'm checking my stocks trying to get into deals working harder than I probably need to also I'll have some weekends ruined and be less present with my family because of shit that was said about me online by probably Russian bots, right?

That just shouldn't affect me. So I'm addicted to those two things. But anyways, protector. We're not Russian bots, okay? Yeah. People might like to imagine we're Russian bots. Yeah. Unfortunately, all the unpleasant things we say are very authentic.

Treatable to us. That's it. But yeah, I do. I like this thing. where he's like I liked alcohol. He thinks he's great on alcohol, but it was bad for him, so he stopped doing that. So anyway, that's the next point. And I'm like, yes, that's the correct way to do those kind of things. You don't have to spend hours and hours going over why you left Twitter and how much change it's needed in your life and multiple podcasts, just as a random example.

The last pillar, Matt. And then the final thing is Procreator. I think we need to embrace and appreciate young men who are really horny. And that is, I think I would, yes. I think wanting to have sex, there's fire, right? Fire can be bad. If it's channeled in bad ways, it can burn down a forest. But if you can put it in an engine with spark plugs, it can create tremendous productive motion forward. And if you use that desire to establish romantic and sexual relationships to be a better person, to demonstrate kindness, to be a better dresser, to have a plan, to be in good shape, to smell nice, I think it can be a fantastic.

to be well read, to be interesting, to have hobbies and passions, to learn how to fucking listen. Like, I'm when I'm coaching these young men and they talk to me about their dates, I'm like, how many questions did you ask her? I mean, ask her. Like, instead of it just being most dates for a young man are what I call controlled boasting, where they just, just, just diary of the mouth trying to talk about how awesome they are. Like, ask her about her and listen and in follow up and ask questions and get to know her. Everyone loves to talk about themselves. It's also way easier to be interested and interesting. You don't actually need to have that much going on in order to be interested in somebody.

Well, it's like having a great sense of humor. You can either be really funny, which is really hard, or you can just laugh out loud at anything remotely funny and people think you have a great sense of humor, right? And it makes everyone feel good about themselves. It's particular advice for American context. It's funny how like it's the pattern there's a pattern here where you sort of take a good piece of of advice. And then it sort of becomes

sinister with a bit of help from Christmas as it goes on. Matt, this is a pillar of masculinity just fucking blows my mind. Right? Like, because it's like saying what we really need to encourage

for the world and to recognize that has value is our desire to eat food. Right. Look, people have been saying, we're getting fat, but the reality is, without food, you die. And having chefs and great cuisines and adventures to foreign lands to get spices. And isn't that related to the desire to eat things?

And you're not going to make people stop wanting to eat things. You can pretend, oh, people don't want to eat things, but they want to eat things. And it's like, you don't need to tell young people it's okay to be horny because they're going to do it anyway. It's like biologically pre-programmed into them, right? Not everyone. There's variations. But like, in general, as our species, this is not a problem we have that like, you know what?

We need to really get into man's head. Encourage them to be horny. It's okay to be horny. And you're like, oh, my, I don't know. This, it blows my mind because it's just something. I think it's this American thing where they're talking about like it's completely demonized. You're not allowed to date people. People aren't allowed to do all this kind of things and whatnot.

And I never had the notion. that being a man, you're not allowed to be horny and want to have sex. No, I never had that. The notion was you're not allowed to be a fucking creep. That's the thing. You're not allowed to pressurize people into sex and so on. But yeah, so I don't know. This one just blew my mind that this is the third pillar is wanting to have sex.

I know. I know. Well, the thing that got me was how like taking a very innocuous and a good piece of advice, which is, you know, be interested, if you're going on a date with someone, or even just hanging out with someone as a friend or whatever, like, show some interest, show some empathy, show some interest in the person you're with. Because if you're doing nothing but boasting or just talking about yourself wrapped up in your own mind, that's no way to relate to another human being, right? That's good advice, right? It should be obvious, but I think, yeah, that probably,

probably a fair few people, especially men, need to hear that. But then with Chris Williamson's help it gets turned into, yeah, this is a tactic, right? This is a tactic. I know. And it's actually easier to implement this tactic than the boasting, talking about yourself, being super funny, just be interested and stuff like that. And so it's, it becomes fake and becomes like, I'm going, the laughing. Yeah. That's insane to me. Like, just, just become better at laughing. Just laugh more. And I'm like, what the hell are you talking to?

Why are you? Are you like, what? If you're thinking about the reasons, why you're laughing, then at gaming that out, then, you know, something's gone wrong. Are they not just laughing when funny things happen? That's what I've been doing this last 40 years. Is that wrong? So, yeah, that's, but you're right. Like, it is that weird mixture.

The whole thing, right, this whole competition is this mixture of like, well, that's good advice. You know, don't boast about yourself. Take interest. And then it's like, because that way you'll. be a higher quality you're going to... You'll out compete the other

males and you'll get to women. Stop it. Stop making a creepy. Stop making a creepy. Now you're going to get talking about a female orgasm. That's for Borden on this show. This is a non...

Decoding the gurus, you know, we talk about many things. We acknowledge that these things happen. You just don't need to talk about it. We don't need to analyze it. That's all I'm saying. Well... Nobody wants to hear a 50-year

old men talk about this stuff. That's all I'm saying. The last clip for you, this is a little bit more about the old procreation impulse. Let's hear about that. You know why I approached Danish women at bars? Because I was really fucking horny. Not because I thought someday I'd like to have kids and be a productive citizen and pay taxes and own a home. I did it because I thought, I would really like to figure out a way to make my own bad porn at some point. So I'm going to take a risk and approach somebody and in a thoughtful, it's not rocket science. Hey, where are you guys from? Right? It's not rocket science. I think young men need to be more focused on how do they approach a strange woman, express sexual or romantic interests while making them feel safe.

And to modulate their consumption of porn, such that fire motivates them to be better men, take risk, be resilient. Oh, she's not interested. You're kind, you're nice, nice to meet you. You go back to your friends, maybe order another drink, and then you try again. With that one. You try again. You text them, hey, around for coffee this week. You don't hear back.

You wait a week and maybe text again. After two, you stop. You don't want to be harassing. But it's okay. If you text someone once, maybe twice, and they're not interested, you're both going to be fine. You're both. And it doesn't involve HR lawyers or discrimination. you know, or harassment suits.

I think men need to embrace their role as procreaters. And there's nothing like trying and trying to punch above your weight class. And quite frankly, maybe she's not initially that interested. And then she gets to know you, gets to see what a wonderful guy you are, needs to see that you're kind, that you have a plan, and you establish relationship. That's what victory feels like. That's what it means to be a mammal.

That's what it means to be a man. Okay. there you go. That's the final pillar. Okay. Okay. Good. I mean, it was all right. It's all right. I mean, I can't just think it's... I think I'm echoing a point that you've made a few times, which is like, yes, I know that if a young men are meeting women romantically, often sex is more foremost in their mind than settling down and having a family and paying taxes.

And it just... While they're young, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I think... you know, yes, but is that, like, did anyone... I know who is arguing. Who is arguing the opposite? Yeah. Is this a, I think this is a thing, like an online thing where they're, you know,

imagine everybody's focused on toxic masculinity and all this kind of stuff. Because like everything they're staying there, to me it just sounds like, you know, saying, look, if you want text someone, don't constantly text them, like one or two, then stop. And you're like, yeah. 12 times. 12 times is too many. 12 times too much. Yeah.

And you're like, yes. And then you have to stop and go, wait, hang on. Do people, some people need to hear that. Other people are like, well, I've only texted her 40 times this week. So, you know. But, you know, this is good advice for women as well. Like, all of this is coded as special secret source for men specifically. But actually, yeah, I've been texted too many times before.

You know, you know, so it's good advice for everyone. Be too keen. Yeah. Treat them mean, keep them keen, Matt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But look, Chris, here's my attempt. Here's my ultra-charitable reading between the lines. What I think Scott Galloway was getting it.

And I think what he was getting is that a lot of these things, which society might think is toxic or at least not very responsible or selfish or whatever, like the impulse to have sex, the impulse to, you know, impress people by showing that you're a high status person in some way, she performs. these impulses have ultimately result in pro-social things, right? It's sort of, it's the impulse that gets men to try harder and do better, and ultimately they split the atom and they settled down and have three kids. That, I think, is the general concept.

And I think there's some truth in that, right? Like a lot of the basic biological drives that people have, whether it is to eat or have shelter or whatever, but it does lead to people doing useful, I don't know, post things that are generally considered good for society, good for everybody. Sure. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think we can both sign off on that, that's good to eat, and it's good to have sex.

If you want to have sex, you know, like that. It's good to take a shower and dress nicely. It's good to have a shower. Even if you're motivated by the most disgusting reasons, you want to have just dirty sex. then, but you know, being clean and being well dressed is, we can all agree. That's good. The amount of times that smell is brought up in the examples is also something that just, are they hanging around with particularly smelly people? I'm always wondering because like it wasn't

a thing that I think maybe that's a problem. Maybe that's my problem. But in any case, like you mentioned one thing, the last step. So you imagine this sort of over-reliance on troops from movies and like imagining movies to be real life. And that this is, illustration of this that's fact made you should always choose the emotionally immature unstable bad boy over the the stable guy the notebook right has a war veteran business owning CEO fiancee who gets defeated by a bloke that puts a house together right because true love is supposed to be kind of like difficult and intense and and and and give you emotional whiplash in this way in

Titanic, you see the husband who has fun by sitting down and having serious conversations and can provide being less preferred to the one who has like loud parties and lives like a teenager. In Twilight, you have the dude that's the werewolf, Jacob, I think, didn't do my Twilight research that much. Jacob is like grounded, reliable. Edward is a literal vampire who can't keep it together. erratic and and and but that's the true love is that beauty and the beast literalizes this right

that true love tames this but that's not really the way it is looks a temporary but personality is pretty fucking permanent his analysis there might my just add of the twilight saga not very accurate like literally jacob is a werewolf who you know is ruled by emotions at various fights as well. So he did know that. And Titanic, I don't think the thing was that you were supposed to take that the guy that she was getting married to was a like a mature, emotionally stable, serious guy. He was dismissive and didn't care about her. That's the kind of image you get that like he was dismissing her because she's just a woman. You're always to not like him, but Chris is like, he was just a responsible man trying to sit down and work at deals with the other. Yeah, he was also an

upper-class Toff, you know, he was a stereotypical bad guy, right? Yes, it was obviously that it's so bad guy coded. Yeah, it was totally bad guy coded. We had Leonardo DiCaprio on the other side of the coin. I know which one I'm picking. But I mean, that's the thing. I mean, Jordan Peterson's got a lot to answer for because he's encouraged this kind of cultural analysis.

There's nothing that Chris is taking from these diverse sources, ranging from werewolves to Leonardo DiCaprio that I think really could inform anything at all apart for him. Well, also like the amount of films where the male character that is getting all the women is like, you know, Batman. He's a masculine crime fighter and he's the CEO billionaire. That bad man's not getting all the girls. Come on. He's like selling a catwoman, poison ivy.

Yeah. He's scared. Don't use a pattern. Well, my point is I could list a number of movies where the bustlebone CEO. is the, you know, like the hero. I'm a wizard, but I'm also a martial artist. And on the side, I'm a crime fighting vigilante, right? And all the women like me and, yeah.

What was it maybe about the billionaire who's got like a suit? Iron man. Iron man. He could probably provide. He seems like he could provide. And he's like, yeah, he could probably. He's an alcoholic, Matt. So that's it.

Oh, that's swing on the lamp. Yeah, we could do this all day, really. couldn't we? We literally could, but I'm surprised he fed so many into that. But yeah, anyway, that was the last clip I have for you. It's been a bit of a journey, I admit. I never want to talk about men things again. And the thing about it is, this is my wrap-up, by the way,

it'll be brief, which is just to say that for me and you, this is an episode. For Chris and Scott, at least for the minute, it's a way of life. this is podcast one of like, you know, the 90-part series on the meal grievances. And I don't have any issue with people talking about men's stuff or being role models for men or whatever. But two things that I would ask is one, stop it. Stop it with dropping the disembodied statistics. If you want to base things on like data analysis and scholarship, then do it properly. and be reasonable, right?

But if you're not doing that, it's just decorative scholarship, as we discussed about it. And it's annoying, okay? I mean, I know I'm not going to stop them, but I'm just saying that's a frustrating thing. And the second thing is like, it's so much healthier,

even in this conversation, when they don't wallow in grievance, when they're talking about things positively and, you know, focusing on things. And Chris Williamson, despite being the one in this, conversation who wants to say, I want to stop doing land acknowledgments. I want to stop framing everything around women's issues. Scott Galloway tries to do that multiple times.

Okay, yeah, that is frustrating. But anyway, let's focus on the positive message. And it keeps getting pulled back to the negative men versus women, you know, the evil psych, simplistic thing. And you're just like, you don't need to frame it like that. And Scott Galloway, to his credit, on his own, I think would have left that a lot more. So, you know, I don't think that Scott Galloway is anywhere near the worst person that we've seen active in this space. There's so many terrible role models and whatnot. And it might be the case that you and IMA are just particularly well-adjusted,

successful, masculine men. And that that's why we are kind of like, who needs to hear this? But for whatever it's worth, I don't have like huge objections to the basic advice about like being nicer and about like it's okay to be a man and whatnot. Yes, fine. But I'm just, I feel like a lot of this is American culture war stuff where it's just not a universal thing. And if they just stop focusing on comparing everything to the most progressive. social justice, like whatever, men are the problem framing. It's just not that much of an issue. And you can't talk about these things. And people do it every single week, day in and day out.

And there's a huge audience for it. So that's, that's okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like you say, Chris, I think I think Scott Galloway there did play footsie with Chris quite a bit there in terms of those grievance narratives and cultural wall framings and lazy evo-syche stuff and whatever but again as you said that's not kind of the direction Scott galloway was tugging the conversation too if I had to characterize it I'd say it was you know slightly schmaltzy I think a bit culturally blinked but yeah no it's like homespun elder male advice for young male people and young people generally and it it was generally positively coded that's the direction he was taking it. I guess I'm a little bit influenced by the fact that I'd seen a lot of Scott Galloway on his other shows, like the Professor G-Pod, the Professor Pof-G markets or whatever.

Not that I really loved it that much, but I just, I don't know, it turned up in my feed and I found myself listening to it semi-regular before sort of tuning out of it, I suppose. But, you know, when he's talking on general topics like the economy, markets, politics, or whatever, I've picked up fine vibes from him. I think probably after having covered him on the show, it did make me reevaluate him a little bit. I kind of thought, maybe he's actually,

maybe realized that maybe the takes are a little bit lazier or from the hip than I might have assumed. But so I guess I've got a generally positive vibe from him, and I give him something of a pass on this episode here for that reason. My main bone that I've got to pick is that in the pursuit of this kind of home-spun wisdom, you know, this is my advice for young men, you know, tuck your shirt in, put your shirt up, get out there and do good things. I mean, I think his motivations are perfectly fine and it's very much in the realm of

positive mentoring for young people. You know, and it's something I'm not entirely unacquainted with myself in the sorts of things I've been involved with generally, you know, younger, younger people, non-adults. But in my experience, genuinely helpful advice isn't so gender coded. Like a lot of the stuff about being confident and being resilient and all of these things apply equally to the young women and the young men or girls and boys that I've seen it affecting. And this is my main issue with the first part of the episode, which was a lot of it was

about the special source that fathers, that men provide, versus the special source that feminine mothers or whatever can provide, especially how it relates to children. And you fact-checked them on to quite a few details there. But when I went back and did a careful look at what actually matters for childhood in terms of positive development with people, it's like almost none of it was the stuff that was really emphasized heavily in this. The whole first part of the show was based on this premise that you need this special,

father support, you know, there are things that boys need to hear from men that they can't get anywhere else. And the evidence just doesn't support this premise at all. If you look at the research and you look at what children actually need for good outcomes, you have things like this. Responsive, caregiving, being securely attached is a technical term, to both parents, right? And that could be provided by, you know, masculine energy or female energy or all. Or men or by women, or avoiding, like, particularly bad adverse childhood experiences, by which I mean, like, abuse, severe, neglect, that kind of thing, household dysfunction of various kinds. If those aren't there, then kids will do better, right? And in terms of teaching kids good stuff,

actually, it's very similar to the stuff that we try to teach with the amazing shake thing, self-regulation and executive function skills, right? So stuff around social competency, you know, a firm handshake being, you know, look at people on the eye. being confident and stuff like that. Again, stuff that is equally beneficial for girls and boys. Another thing that you mentioned during Chris that's really important for kids, economic resources. Being in a family where you're not incredibly economically disadvantaged, super important, not surprisingly. Family stability, right, not having a revolving door of caregivers, right? The household composition changing from year to year, that's not good. It's better for it to be stable.

and, you know, just general social, emotional learning opportunities, you know, enrichment, all of that stuff. So that's the stuff that has been absolutely shown to be important for both the boys and girls, and they always look at gender differences, and none of the stuff that was emphasized. What's not actually shown by the research is that children need a parent of each gender or specific, you know, man-to-man talks or this sort of gender-specific mentor. or even that kind of rough and tumble play specifically from fathers or that traditional gender role modeling.

I'm going to show you how to be a man, that kind of thing. Like that's not supported. So I went into all of that Chris to say that that was the fundamental premise from which all of the extra stuff was layered on. Right. And I think when you're working from unsound premises, then unfortunately, even if the motivations are good, even if some of the advice is not bad or whatever, a large part of that is just a waste of your time.

Like, you have to be building from strong premises, and you could find that out by doing a basic literature review. And what you don't do is you just cherry pick a particular study that showed that 40% this or 60% that. You just look at the literature, and it's easier than ever now for anyone, especially someone who's as clever and as well-resourced to Scott Galloway to do that. I think the issue is that that sort of stuff where there is, a social psychological research consensus, all of that stuff I enumerated, it's all pretty boring to people.

Like you said, it's not, it doesn't really have much culture war cachet. It's all kind of, oh, yeah, well, that's obvious sort of stuff, right? And it doesn't have that kind of grievance. Oh, this is what they're not telling you. This is what we're not allowed to say. This is the kind of thing. And I get that Scott Galloway's vibe doesn't have that. Like, that's more of a Chris Williamson thing.

But I think what he does lean into is the sort of vibe that, you know, that it's attractive. It makes a good content to say, you know what, Chris? You know, fathers, men, we offer something special. And I'm not saying that women and mothers don't offer something special too. It's femininity and motherhood and so on is incredibly important for our society. But it's also important that, you know, the special role of men and our and the masculinity that we bring to the table, that's also incredibly important for society. work, and particularly so for children. They need to be getting both. Now that, that sounds fucking great, right? Like that, that even sounds good to me, as I say it, right? It's an appealing

kind of message, and it's not necessarily a toxic one. But I'm just saying it's not really supported by the evidence. So it falls into the realm of nice storytelling, nice rhetoric, nice kind of just so type stories, which can provide the basis for, you know, a healthy kind of advice and mentoring for young people. A lot of good advice is founded on a kind of fiction, but I'm just pointing out that it's not really real. So, so yeah, I think in this context, Scott Galloway, with the strong urging of Chris Williamson, was kind of at his most guru-esque. And I don't think it was terribly toxic. I just, you know, we have a lot of bones to pick. But, you know, I don't mind the cut of his jib.

I think he can be a bit lazy and careless sometimes, but then again, so can I. So, you know. Well, on the back of all that, I'll just say that, you know, in my case, I don't think I can recall a single conversation I ever had with my follower about being a man. Okay. Like, now you can judge that as good or bad. And look how he turned up, ladies and gentlemen. This is why it's so important, man, to talk to your kids. Otherwise, you're going to get a Chris.

You're going to get a Chris on your head. I'm just saying that, like, there's this image of all the heart to heart and stuff. And, like, you know, I've had my moments with my dad over the year and whatnot. But, like, my relationship with my dad is fine. Yeah, I don't agree it. Well, I mean, Chris, I've got to say that too, which is that I've never had that man-to-man talk with my dad either, ever. not in the entire 50 years of my life.

And I haven't really, no, I shouldn't, I won't even qualify it. I haven't had that kind of talk with my son at all, right? And I've got a great relationship with both of them, and he's turning out great. So, I mean, just put that in your pipe and smoke it. Like, we're just two examples. It's just an anecdote. I mean, these are just anecdotes, right? But here's the thing I think it points to, right, is that part of this is like cultural differences, right?

And like you and I are Anglos, right? Have, you know, the UK, Irish, Australian Anglo culture thing. Celtic Angles, yes. Which is much more reserved. And from our point of view, less schmaltzy than the American culture where I think it's much more common. And I think if you did a survey of Americans, you'd find those stereotypical, listen, Jimmy. You and I. They never had a birds and the bees.

Or we're going to talk about how to be a man and how to deal with that sort of thing. And so, yeah, no, I never had that either. And I think we're just much more culturally reserved about those things, whereas I think Americans are like really lean into it really strongly. Now, whether the American way is better, or if what I'm saying is true, then whether or not the American way is better or the Anglo way is better, who knows, right? He cares.

The point is that it's very much culturally determined. It's not universal. Yeah, it's not universal. Yeah. Yeah. So that's our tick. Okay, just cool your jets a little bit. Yeah, just calm down.

That's our take. Chill out. Yeah, that's it. Chill out. Stop talking about orgasms. That's true. Yeah, the love of God. For the love of God, really.

Nobody wants to hear this. Well, no, Matt. Speaking of this, I'm not going to draw this out. You know, we've got, we've give people long content, long form content. They want to get out of here. But I am going to thank the patrons. And I'm going to read one review, which is formatically, relevant. And it's a, it's a review

for our podcast, Matt. It's one out of five stars. And it suggests that we are part of the monosphere. So, you know, phonetically, I think we should do what they have to say. I love it. This is from C underscore D535. In the

beginning, there is a man talking to other men on a podcast. Then all of those men had podcasts and they talked to other men on their podcast. And now we have these men who have a podcast talking about those men talking on the podcast. This has all become very silly now.

Let's stop. Peak Manosphere was the question mark. So there you go. That's an opinion, Matt, that we are actually at the top of the monosphere from a certain point of view. Well, based on the criteria that we talk about other men,

more than any other men, we could be the epitome of peak masculinity. Masculinity. We're at the apex of the competition hierarchy, the dominance hierarchy. Oh, well, actually, I do have another negative review that speaks to that because I'm sure if they analyzed us, they would say, well, this is, you know, we're beta, whatever,

like fucking cuttlefish, kind of sneak in. Yeah. I mean, we've already procreated, so take that. Yeah. But whatever, that's just successful cuddlerfish. Okay. But listen to this review, which kind of highlights this. This one is titled, Woke Gurus.

They're not all negative. They're not only about, but this one is at 105. They have no original content, but merely regurgitate the standard woke ideology, feeding on the popularity of true creators who are briefly challenging the status quo, not listening to for more than a couple of minutes, ground total.

And that's from Germany. That's from Germany. Oh, man. That's not my image of Germans. Well, that's it. I can't remember his name is like Kerserman. I just the hammered all the keys. So he was probably furious at that point. So we are shitting on our betters and ascending the manosphere as a result of it.

We are the peak of the manosphere. That's the reality. Sorry, you don't, you guys don't want to hear it, but that's, this is what pigmeal performance. looks like. This is how you get the women. First, you get the podcast. Then you get the guests. Question, question, question, Mark.

Yeah. Profit. Well, so now, Matt, the patrons, though. A couple of shout out this week. Okay. I'm going to go from the conspiracy hypothesis up. We've got anti-mouon, Kudad 420,

potato smashed, George, Minator, Elliot, Bootsie, Mitchell Popp, Georgia D, Nancy, Tim Anderson, Boncer, Alexander Tasker, Selex, K.B. Daxio, Craig Goldburn Martin, Florian Overfelt, Jared Long, Escape Verbosity, Charles Barnes, Daniel Neely, S. McDonagh, and Joe Johnston. That is our conspiracy hypothesizers for this month. Thank you. Thank you to all of them. I feel like there was a conference that none of us were invited to that came to some very strong conclusions, and they've all circulated this list of correct answers. I wasn't at this conference. This kind of shit makes me think, man.

It's almost like someone is being paid. Like when you hear these George Soros stories, he's trying to destroy the country from within. We are not going to advance conspiracy theories. we will advance conspiracy hypotheses. Okay, revolutionary genius, Matt, the mid-tier that can get the decoding academia content. That is Jordan Digg, Ian Gillis, Oliver Ness, Felix Wigginberger, Jessica, Nathan Dolman, semiotic at PM, Ian Player, Helgi Plasin, Artem Chernekev, Patrice Duket, Ray Harris, Johnny B and Dajipa. Well, good folk, one or all.

Men and women. Men and women. They're a mixture of masculine and feminine and energy in whatever proportion they like. I'm usually running, I don't know, 70 or 90 distinct paradigms simultaneously all the time. And the idea is not to try to collapse them down to a single master paradigm. I'm someone who's a true polymath.

I'm all over the place. but my main claim to fame, if you'd like in academia, is that I founded the field of evolutionary consumption. Now, that's just a guess, and it could easily be wrong, but it also could not be wrong. The fact that it's even plausible is stunning. That was a revolutionary geniuses, now finally, the Galaxy Green, Galaxy Brin gurus, the core pillar of our masculine podcast. We have Elisa Rossati, Beaker,

of fine bread, Leanne Barlow, Kevin, we have resident neo-Marxist, anti-capitalist, if he Donatello, Katie Rani, Jeffrey Stevenson, Big Beef Gumpus, Joseph Braskel, Madeline Ride, and Mark.

Look at that. Look at that. See, this should be an incentive to all potential subscribers. You could be, uh, with the likes of Big Beef Gumpus. Big Gave combo. Yeah. The compass. It's actually a...

Gumpo, eh? Yeah, that's even better. Big Booth Gumpo. That's the caliber that we're looking at here. For our top tier supporters, that's right. And for you, you have a special song fire. Hello there, you awakening wonders. You may not be aware that your entire reality is being manipulated.

Become part of our community or free speakers. We are still allowed to say stuff like this. like this. Science is failing. It's failing right in front of our eyes and no one's doing anything about it. I'm a shill for no one. More than that, I just simply refuse to be caught in any one single echo chamber. In the end, like many of us must, I walk alone. He walks alone. He's a lone wolf. He's like a wolf lax. He's like, ah, you know, he's like lonely, but he's also badass. That's the feeling I get from. In the end, he's a lone wolf. He's like, he's like, he's like lonely, but he's also badass. I know. That's the feeling I get from... In the end, he walks alone.

He walks alone. That's often the feeling I get from Lex. Not that these are sycophantic licks, but look. Not at all. He's actually a perfect example of my thesis that I think just Americans watch too many movies and they've just imbibed. Like that kind of cliche, you know, the wanderer, he walks alone. Oh yeah, you know, he's out there. He's probably doing, you know, devoting himself to justice and finding bad guys on the side.

But ultimately he's very lonely. It's like Batman. He's like the traveler. I mean, that's a, that's a trope for movies. And I get that it's appealing and it's fun in a movie. But that's not Lex, and it's not 99.99% of us. You know, people should think less about movies and more about real life. I agree.

I agree. That's a good note the end on. Things less about movies and more about real life. But maybe not with the current cheer of politics. Just try to ignore that as much as possible. And I'm just going to say, by the way, Even though Scott Galloway was not having a go at same-sex couples at all, was not what he was doing,

implicit in his thesis that boys need the special masculine energy, and if they don't, they're going to go crazy. I mean, they've done a fair bit of study, a fair bit of study on same-sex couples, Chris. A fair bit for completely different reasons, checking to see how the kids are going, how are their outcomes and so on. They're fine, right? They're all right. They're all right.

Well, I mean, he does say that. Yeah, that's right. I know. But you can't get out of that by saying, oh, yeah, that's because it's just all about masculine and feminine energies because it's like, well, if you're talking about energy, then we're not talking about men and women anymore, right? We're just talking about an abstract kind of vibe that could come from anyone. So anyway, that's my point.

I know. You can't just play those little tricks in the voyage. Strategic this thing. You can't get those pass mats. So we're going to get that in at the final post there. Last little thing. You've probably got away he's got. I still think he's got away Scott.

I still think he's fine. It reminds me of myself. That's the thing. That's a worrying thing. I think it's where there's similar demographic, a similar kind of. When's your cosmetic surgery, Matt? That's the question.

You know, I wouldn't. If somebody, if there's any plastic surgeons in the audience who'd like to offer me free plastic surgery, Yeah, I'll consider it. I'll consider it. Okay.

Matt will consider it. I will not. Yeah, that's good. Matt said it. It's here in the podcast. That makes it. So get in touch if you want to perform plastic surgery. Yeah.

He's open to it. Yeah, man. Yeah, that's an odd way to end the podcast, but that's how we're going to do it, Matt. Goodbye to you. Until next time. Orvoir. Adios. Ciao.

Bye.