3 MINUTE MONDAY
Hi friend,
I had a conversation this week about the challenges that men and women face in the modern world.
It’s interesting how rarely pro-male or pro-female activists are prepared to genuinely accept that the other sex may encounter difficulties without measuring it against their own suffering.
There is an assumption that any attention paid toward men takes it away from women, or some other minority group who is more-deserving, and vice versa.
It’s a zero-sum view of empathy.
Obviously this is not how empathy works, rather it indicates just how broken the conversation around men and women is that “care for people who are struggling in life” is seen as a finite resource.
Women can point to how men don’t need to fear as much sexual assault.
Men can point to how women don’t need to fear #MeToo allegations.
But men hold more CEO positions!
But women are graduating college at higher rates!
There’s more male homelessness!
But there’s more women in sex work!
It’s like both sides are trying to balance some bizarre social justice equation.
How many false allegations are worth a sexual assault?
How many female graduates are worth a male CEO?
"My privilege is more oppressed than your privilege.”
It’s victimhood masquerading as arithmetic.
And entirely based on a flawed premise.
The complexity of the truth is inconvenient for both sides.
There is no equating the suffering of one group to another.
And perceiving at the discussion in this way causes everyone to enter the entire frame incorrectly - as adversaries.
Accepting the challenges of one group does not disable attention from being paid to another.
Similarly, it should not be the case that a discussion about men’s troubles needs to first be hedged with grovelling caveats about how we know that women face a myriad of problems too, or else you're accused of myopic misogyny.
Zero-sum empathy is boring and narcissistic and has been done over and over, achieving nothing other than pushing both groups apart.
I’ve been talking about the need for a Third-wave Manosphere for a while now, it seems we could do with that more than ever right now. (very open to better alternative names)
MODERN WISDOM
I do a podcast where I pretend to have a British accent. You should subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
This week’s upcoming episodes:
Monday.
Brett Cooper - whether there’s a pushback against boss babe culture, whether you should get married early, the problems with Gen Z mental health, what it’s like to work with Ben Shapiro and more.
Thursday.
Joe Hudson - an absolute underground beast in the world of psychology. How to understand and integrate your emotions, how to improve negative self-talk, don’t miss this one.
Saturday.
Doctor Mike - the internet’s best known medical doctor breaks down the dangers of taking health advice online, the risks of cosmetic surgery and how to actually live longer.
THINGS I'VE LEARNED
1.
Don’t aim for mediocre.
“Ninety-nine percent of people in the world are convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre.
The level of competition is thus fiercest for “realistic” goals, paradoxically making them the most time and energy consuming.
If you are insecure, guess what?
The rest of the world is, too.
Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself.
You are better than you think.” — Tim Ferriss
2.
The future is female.
“By 2030, American women are expected to control much of the $30 trillion in financial assets that baby boomers will possess—a potential wealth transfer of such magnitude that it approaches the annual GDP of the United States."
It is being partly fuelled by Baby Boomer men dying before their partners. — h/t McKinsey
3.
The harder you work the luckier you become.
“Luck is the residue of design.” — Douglas Murray
LIFE HACK
A question to ask yourself when you’re doing something that’s frustrating.
“What would this be like if it was more enjoyable?”
Big love,
Chris x
Try my productivity drink Neutonic.
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PS
I went to my first professional bull riding rodeo in Montana this weekend. Continuing to appropriate American culture across the West.
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